Welp, guess who has two thumbs and broke up her chapters improperly?

This gal.

I was wrong about there only being one chapter and an epilogue left. Turns out there are two chapters and an epilogue. Yay, I'm not leaving you guys just yet!

By the way, make sure to read the note at the end of the chapter for a short PSA about the future of this series!

Otherwise, enjoy!

My head hurt.

That wasn't really out of the norm, since I'd joined up with the Cooper gang head injuries had been fairly regular. But I also wasn't in a sleeping bag and I couldn't hear the gang nearby and that was out of the norm.

Opening my eyes, I found myself squinting in confusion at an unfamiliar blanket and beyond that at an unfamiliar room. It was small, just the bed I was on (which appeared to be bolted to the wall), two doors (one with a handle and one without), and a small, round window.

A cell, my mind provided. That was where I was.

I didn't want to sit up any more than I wanted to take Murray on in a competitive eating contest, but I needed to get more information. Pushing the single blanket away and swinging my legs over the side of the bed took a lot of effort, but I managed to shakily get to my feet.

Behind the door that actually had a handle was a closet-sized bathroom with just a toilet, a sink, and a shower. So this was a long term cell... that boded poorly.

Retreating back into the room, I frowned and cast a look around. From the situation, I'd guess it was Le Paradox who was currently playing host considering I remembered nothing after my rather embarrassing attempt at fighting the guy. The question was 'why?'.

My best guess was that I was a 'just in case' bargaining chip. That honestly didn't make much sense, though. Le Paradox was clever, yes, but he was full of himself. Things had gone his way this whole time. We'd taken down his time agents, but he got what he wanted in the end and, for all intents and purposes, seemed to have planned it that way. He didn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd have a fallback plan, he struck me as the sort of person who wouldn't think he needed one.

Pacing, I found myself at the window and, on a whim, peeked out. I wasn't surprised to see the Eiffel Tower outside, Paris was where everything seemed to come to a head, no matter what time period we were in or what villain we were facing.

What I was surprised to see was the museum the blimp was anchored to or, rather, where the museum would be. The building was there, but the surrounding grounds were bare. The museum had been constructed, but the landscaping hadn't started yet.

Timewise, I'd say Le Paradox had brought us back to about half a month before Sly stole the dagger from him.

My fingers tightened on the rim of the window. Bentley had picked up the Eiffel Tower model we used to get to the present the afternoon before jumping into the past and it had seemed to effectively get us back to that time plus however long we'd been in the past. There was no way the gang was going to show up for at least a few weeks.

I quietly started panicking.

"WHAT!?"

Kristian's shout actually echoed. Bentley was honestly kind of impressed.

The turtle looked up from where he was bandaging Salim's arm to watch Sly respond. The raccoon was standing in front of the cougar, not cowing in the slightest, "Le Paradox took Kaia to keep us from following. He also has all the documentation he needs to establish himself as a prominent member of royalty."

Kristian snarled. He was disheveled from his stay in the Forty Thieves' old hideout, looking sickly and a little like a strong breeze might knock him over, but also furious, "You're awfully calm about that."

Sly matched his look, "We're going to get her back."

"Oh, well, thank you for that bombshell. Do you have a plan as to how we're going to do that?"

Taking pity on his friend, Bentley taped the bandage he'd been using in place and turned to join the conversation, "We're going to go back to our time, get as much information as we can, and work from there."

"So the plan is basically 'improvise'?" Kristian asked incredulously.

"It's been a good plan in the past," Murray muttered, staring balefully at a sundae but making no move to eat it.

"Well it didn't work this time, did it?"

"Just," Bentley sighed, rubbing his head as Sly walked away from the conversation, settling on the bumper of the van, "we're going to fix this. If you don't want to do it our way, we'll drop you off at Interpol and you can go the legal route. But we're going to go after Le Paradox our way."

Kristian twitched like he really didn't like either option and stalked over to gather his things silently.

"I will be nearby," Salim said, standing, "if you need my help, return and I will give it."

"Thanks, Salim," Sly said quietly, not looking up from the square of paper he was staring at as his ancestor walked out of the Safehouse.

After exchanging a worried look with Murray, Bentley wheeled himself over to Sly. He was looking at an old photograph and the turtle was surprised to see that it was the picture Sly had taken in Canada several years ago, a candid of when Kaia saw the Northern Lights for the first time and had hung halfway out the window of the van to get a closer look. It was pretty much the only picture of Kaia's time in the gang that Bentley knew of. He had a copy on the external where he backed up all the binocucom photos, but he had no idea Sly had held onto the physical copy.

"I'm sure she's fine," he offered, at something of a loss.

"I know," Sly said, standing with a forced smile, "she's too thick headed to be anything else."

Bentley was about to say something else, but instead jumped when the green crystal on the table lit up and the familiar hologram of Dimitri sprung into existence in the air.

"Bros! You got to come back straight quick, they're making us boogey down in skunk town!"

"Well that hardly sounds promising," Bentley frowned at the speed. How had Le Paradox managed to get the documentation verified already?

Being a hostage was boring.

That seems contrary to what would be expected, I know, but seriously. Being captured was boring and miserable.

For the first couple of days I was happy to just stay in bed, trying not to puke. My motion sickness apparently extended to blimps now, though it hadn't ever really been a problem in planes. It was mild, but the massive bump on the head from my failed attempt to zap Le Paradox made it about ten times worse than it would have been otherwise.

There was a slot in the door with no handle, the one I assumed led to the rest of the blimp. Food would be slid through the slot a couple of times a day and that was the limit of my interaction with the outside world.

It was the kind of boring that left you longing for a giant pile of laundry to fold just to pass the time, but I literally had nothing to work with. Once I was a little less likely to start dry heaving the second I managed to get upright and the pounding in my head had faded down to manageable levels, I started trying to find a way to manage said boredom.

The most obvious solution was escape, but that was easier said than done when the only visible exits were a thick steel door and a tiny window that was more of a porthole than anything else. That wasn't going to stop me of course, because being a part of the Cooper gang had graced me with sheer tenacity if nothing else, but it definitely made things harder.

I spent several days going over the room from top to bottom, looking for any weakness I could exploit. The window was out of the question, even though I could probably have found some way to get it open. This was mostly because, even if I managed to fit through it, which was probably impossible, I would have to find some way off the blimp while also dangling precariously from said blimp, which was hovering high above the ground.

Time sort of blurred together after a certain point. The whole situation was frustrating and annoying and the sheer lack of anything to distract myself from said annoyance and frustration multiplied it all by a factor of twenty.

Knowing that keeping control would be the most valuable thing I could do didn't actually help me do it. So, it was on one fateful day where my motion sickness had intensified and my suppressed rage had reached an all-time peak that I hauled off and kicked a very particular section of wall... which proceeded to cave in.

I paused, throbbing headache momentarily clearing as I stared dumbfounded at the badly dented section of wall and the rapid metallic clicks that were sounding from behind it. So that was where the air vent was.

The square of wall had been designed to look identical to all the other metal squares that lined the room, but it was clearly not made of the same stern stuff. That wasn't overly surprising, though, considering the fact that air needed to pass through it. It took only a few more kicks to loosen it enough that I could pry the cover free.

The fan went silent again once it wasn't hitting anything, but I was seriously starting to wonder how I hadn't noticed the draft. Normally, the fan would have posed a problem, given the Spartan setup of the cell, but, now that I had the mangled cover to use, I wasn't going to be so easily stopped.

Grabbing the longest bit of the cover I had broken off, I shielded my eyes with an arm and stabbed it into the fan blades. The machinery whined and crunched and made various other noises that would probably send Bentley into an offended seizure, but, with the fan blades jammed, I felt comfortable swinging around and kicking out, clearing the fan out of the way and providing myself with quite the convenient escape route.

Crawling into an air duct was not on any list of things I ever wanted to do, but I wanted to stay in that room even less, so I bit the bullet and slid inside. It didn't matter that I had no idea where I was going, I just wanted out. Surely there'd be a way off the blimp, right? I could improvise.

Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to bring along the mangled bit of the cover I'd used to break the fan. There were two more fans I had to break through before I found another, larger vent with a mesh covering to kick out and slip through.

No guards were around, thankfully, but I still kept to the shadows as I looked around. The room was massive and looked like the main manufacturing center for the weird green gas the rat guards used in their weapons. The majority of it was a mass of vents and chains and moving platforms, but I spotted something on a higher level that made my heart leap in my chest.

Climbing up there wasn't exactly graceful. It involved a lot of scrambling and desperate grabs for footholds that should have been out of my reach, but I eventually got up to the platform I wanted and confirmed that, yes, that was Tennessee's cane inside the case.

I'd rested a hand against the glass and was looking around for a way to get the case open when light flooded the room and a voice came from the dark section of wall that was, apparently a video screen.

"Ah, the youngest Cooper finally escapes," Le Paradox goaded from where his face was plastered on the screen. It felt like he was looking right at me and it was really disconcerting. "It took much longer than I was expecting but, no matter, you are just in time for the main event."

Okay, so far my escape attempt was going incredibly poorly and, from the sounds of things, it had been wholly and completely expected and planned for. Great. "And what's the main event? Gloating?"

He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "I was hoping for more out of you. No, I am referring to the fact that you cannot leave."

"Umm," I glanced over at the open hangar bay. "I'm pretty sure I can. I mean, I probably wouldn't survive the fall if I just straight out jumped, but there's plenty in here for me to figure something out."

The skunk sighed, like I was missing the entire point, "As entertaining as such a thought is, you do not understand." The screen shifted from his face to a view of something like... a waiting room? From the looks of the windows, it was located on the blimp somewhere.

I didn't understand until I recognized one of the occupants, a middle-aged journalist who was on her phone. She looked like a clouded leopard, but her ears were a little too pointed and her shoulders a little too broad. Clear signs of a canine-feline hybrid.

Eyes widening, I sucked in a desperate breath, fingers clenching on the glass case as my heart leapt in my chest, warmth radiating through my body as adrenaline started to flow, "What is she doing here?"

Le Paradox gave a delighted little laugh as his face came back onscreen, "Why, it's the story of the century! The discovery of a royal lineage in a patron of the arts. Everyone is hoping for an interview."

"And your plan was to, what? Wait until I escaped, dangle that over my head? Gloat?" My mouth just kept running while my nails dug into the case and I swallowed rapidly against the urge to freak the hell out.

"You underestimate the entertainment value in such a trick, cherie." Le Paradox propped a head in his hand. "After all, I have little else to do while waiting for those morons you call a gang."

Swallowing again, I forced myself to hold my head high and ask, "Now what? We're at a stalemate."

"Not at all. With a push of one little button, I can open the floor and your dear mother goes plummeting to the earth. I hold all the cards. You must simply play along."

Oh that didn't sound good, "Play along how?"

There was that smirk again. I was really starting to hate it. "Hold still."

After a split second where he presumably flipped a switch or pressed a button or something, the gas vents around the room abruptly wrenched open and started flooding the entire chamber.

I groaned loudly as the cloud grew and muttered, "This should be fun."

Returning to Paris was a shock when just about every landmark had been altered to include Le Paradox's visage somehow and the skunk's blimp hovered overhead like a threatening reminder.

Learning Le Paradox's background didn't help much. Sure, it gave them a little context as to how he'd gotten such influence, but it was hard to believe that his entire grudge against the Cooper line was based on the fact that his father had been outsmarted by Connor Cooper, which had lead to Le Paradox Sr.'s arrest. Still, it wouldn't be the first time the Coopers had gained a nemesis due to superior thieving skills. At least it wasn't another Clockwerk.

However, it was still a mystery how the skunk had worked so quickly. At least, it was until Bentley came up with a theory.

"A head start?"

Bentley typed into his laptop rapidly. "Le Paradox had much more time to plan than we did, it's possible that he took advantage of that by finding an object that would give him a few weeks or months of time to put his royal influence to use before we could catch up with him."

Sly planted his hands on the table. "Are you telling me Jinx has been stuck with that guy for months?"

"I'm saying that it's possible."

Kristian was taking his gun apart and putting it back together with worrying attention. "We should go make up for lost time."

"Agreed, but we can't run in with no information." Bentley paused as an idea started to shape in his head. "Murray, look over the van and let me know if there are any problems. We may have to make a lot of time jumps quickly."

"Can do!"

"Sly," Bentley turned to his friend, who was pacing a rut in the floor, "You stick to the plan. Get on the blimp and try to gather information, but do not do anything reckless. We're going to go on a recruiting trip to get you a little backup."

Sly gave a small salute with his cane, "You got it."

Sliding the final part of the gun into place, Kristian cleared his throat, "I'd like to go on a little recruiting trip of my own."

Hoping it wouldn't come back to bite him, Bentley nodded, "I'll give you coordinates where and a time when we can rendezvous."

The sushi shop was more successful than ever before. Rioichi would not have ever believed that geishas would be his most valued customers, but he was honored to have their business. Madam Geisha, upon returning to the area and learning that El Jefe had been run out, had been mightily grateful. A customer or not, he'd caused trouble for everyone in the area.

After a long, satisfying day of plying his trade, Rioichi meditated atop his shop. He felt unbalanced when he lacked his cane, though he carried his knives with him constantly. It was a weakness he could not abide and one he planned to eliminate before his young descendant returned his cane to him.

However, a good plan is not always allowed a chance to come to fruition. A familiar blue flash and the sound of what Murray-san had called an 'engine' reached Rioichi's ears, prompting him to emerge from his meditative state.

Frowning to himself, he leapt to the street. He had not thought they would return so quickly.

His suspicions were confirmed when the large 'van' careened into sight, stopping in front of him with a horrid screeching sound. A door on its side slid open, "Rioichi!"

"Bentley-san, Murray-san." The van was empty of his descendant and the young girl who had followed him through time. "Where are Sly and Kaia-san?"

Bentley and Murray exchanged looks. "That's the thing," Bentley-san began, "I know you're probably still working on getting things back to normal, but we could use your help-"

The turtle cut himself off when Rioichi swung into the van, settling himself in an unused corner, "You may inform me as we travel. Stagnant waters do no good."

"Thanks, Rioichi. Hit it, Murray!"

"You got it, chum!"

I sat on the bed in the new cell I'd been enjoying for the last week, running a piece of thread through my fingers, trying to remember how to twist it into Jacob's Ladder. The thread had come loose from my pants and it wasn't like I was exactly rolling in entertainment.

The new cell had no window and the air duct (once I located it by finding the draft) was embedded in the ceiling, far out of my reach when all the furniture was bolted down. So yeah, I was probably going to snap and start painting the walls with blood any day.

When I heard the PA system come on, I deliberately ignored it. Le Paradox liked to gloat once in awhile, presumably he was as bored with the inactivity as I was, and nothing annoyed the guy more than when he didn't receive the proper responses to his overt displays of evil.

"Cherie, I have a present for you."

"You shouldn't have," I said dryly, frowning at the tangle I'd made of the thread and my fingers and trying to figure out if I'd be able to straighten out the string before the lack of circulation made my hands go numb. "Now I feel bad that I didn't get you anything."

I didn't look up when I heard a noise in the hallway. I only looked up when the door opened.

"Kaia?!"

The string in my hands snapped in three different places.

There was just something about stealing from crooked lawmen. Their cries of outrage when they found their safes empty were so much sweeter. Tennessee couldn't believe he'd ever stolen from anyone else.

As he walked out of the abandoned mineshaft he'd repurposed as a place to stash his loot, he took a long drag of his cigarette and exhaled in satisfaction. It had been a long day, but a good one. Time to head back to town, maybe introduce himself to the new bartender he'd heard about-

He didn't know if he heard or saw something, but he abruptly knew he wasn't alone in the shadows of the canyon. Pulling his pistol from its holster, he whirled in the direction of the intruder, bringing the gun up to bear.

Metal slid against metal and Tennessee found his gun deflected by a long, thin sword. A katana.

Following the sword back to the person wielding it, he blinked. A furry red-striped tail gave away that his uninvited guest was a raccoon, but his face was shrouded by a hood. That didn't matter much, though. Tennessee had read the Thievius Raccoonus cover to cover. And Sly had mentioned the first ancestor he'd visited. "Say, ain't you Rioichi?"

The other raccoon raised his head, giving Tennessee a glimpse of his face. An approving glint decorated his eyes, even though his tone was dismissive when he turned his back. "Bentley-san was unable to find you. Come, the final battle approaches and our enemy has taken Kaia-san."

Tennessee gaped, "Shoot, why did you say so!? Let's go!"

Retracing the same path, avoiding the same guards and choppers, and infiltrating the museum the exact same way he had before gave Sly plenty of time to think.

That wasn't necessarily a good thing. As much as Bentley tried to prompt him into doing it, into thinking things through, there was a reason Sly didn't. He always thought too much, always found himself going over every possible way things could go wrong.

And right then, with so much at stake, he couldn't afford to overthink things. He'd never claim he was right about everything, but he liked to think he had pretty good instincts. He knew he needed to trust them, especially now.

It didn't really help that he had no idea what kind of state Kaia was in. The last time he saw her, just a few hours ago, she'd been lying in a crumpled heap in Le Paradox's blimp. But for her, it had been weeks. Did that mean she'd healed? He had no idea how hurt she'd been, but it had looked pretty bad.

He remembered the conversation he'd had with Bentley on Kaine Island, after fighting that chimera monstrosity of Dr. M's. Too many hits to the head and someone's mind could snap. It was what had given him the inspiration to fake amnesia in the first place, though, too be fair, he had been really disoriented for a good long while after jumping in front of Carmelita and taking that hit.

But if that was true, how close was Kaia's mind to the breaking point?

Galleth considered the plot of land in front of him. Now that the Evil Black Knight had been vanquished and peace had returned to the land, there was something to be said for having a hobby.

The architect next to him fidgeted nervously, doubtless in awe of the insightful suggestions he had made. "Sir," the hedgehog began, "As... creative as that is, I'm not sure a wooden building would survive the elements long if you insist upon an open theater. Might I suggest stone?"

"Nonsense!" Galleth bellowed. "A stone theater would take far longer to construct, would it not?"

"Well, yes, carpenters are many and masons are few-"

Holding up a hand to stop the hedgehog's words, Galleth listened carefully. He could have sworn he'd heard-

A blue light flashed through the clearing and Murray's curious machinated carriage leapt into existence, frightening the architect into fleeing back to the village, and skidded to a halt mere paces from Galleth's boots.

"What's this?" he declared, as the machine opened, "Have you vanquished the tyrant already?"

It was not familiar faces that emerged from the carriage. Indeed, aside from Bentley, he knew not a one of them. However, they were hardly strangers to him.

"Greetings!" he raised his lance in salute, "To what honor do I owe this visit?"

Murray poked his head out the window, "We're going on a rescue mission!"

"Truly?" Galleth gleefully asked. "Who are we rescuing?"

The largest of his ancestors rumbled in answer, gesturing wildly with his heavily clawed hands as he explained.

"What a cowardly deed! We must put an end to this Paradox, post haste! Tally ho!"

Leaping into the van he overhead his hat wearing relative turn to the hooded one and ask, "Now, are we really sure he's related to you?"

The hooded raccoon just sighed.

"Kaia."

I tugged my pillow down over my ears, trying to block out the voice.

"Kaia, you have to come out from under the bed sometime."

I ignored the déjà vu, "No, I don't. Go away."

A heavy sigh, "I can't leave any more than you can."

Maybe that was true. Probably. I'd like to think so. Still...

I peeked from under the pillow and spotted the black heels of the person sitting on top of my bed. They were very shiny shoes. "I don't care."

She stooped and peered under the bed, sighing again when I pulled the pillow back down to avoid looking at her, "I would have thought you'd outgrown hiding under the bed at some point."

I considered hitting her with the pillow for that one. "Well, you wouldn't really know, would you?"

She shifted and, when I peeked out again, I saw she'd put her back to the bed and was leaning against it. "I suppose not." Her long, spotted tail swept across the floor in random arcs. "Though not for lack of trying."

I didn't even dignify that with a response.

"Will you please come out?"

With a strangled noise of frustration, I dragged myself out from under the bed, climbed on top of it, and sat cross-legged at the head of it, hugging my pillow, "Are you happy now, Mom?"

"Ecstatic," she replied dryly, heaving herself up to sit at the foot of the bed. "Now can we talk?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"You and I both know that's not true."

I groaned and buried my face in the pillow, already regretting coming out from my hiding place, "Talk about what?"

She hesitate, as though she hadn't the faintest idea what to ask after, now that she had the opportunity. Finally, after a few moments of consideration, she asked, "Are you happy?"

I paused, then looked up at her, seeing in her face the eyes I had inherited. "Why does everyone keep asking me that? If I weren't happy, why would I stick around?"

My mother shrugged, "Lots of people stay in places where they're unhappy."

"Well that's ridiculous and I'm not one of them."

She smiled to herself, looking away. She really hadn't changed much since the last time I saw her. At least, from what I remembered. Most of my memories were really fuzzy.

I felt like I should have been more angry, but at the same time I felt like I didn't need to be. The look on her face said she didn't need me to be angry at her, she already knew. Besides, anger took energy that I could use for other things. It wouldn't change anything anyway.

I couldn't forgive her, not for a long time at the very least. But I didn't have to forgive her. I just had to stop thinking about it. I could reserve the anger for when I needed it. For the rest of the time, forgetting about her would probably best.

Not that I could do that when we were in the same cell.

Considering the square of metal in the ceiling, I frowned to myself. Maybe I could convince her to let me get on her back, that way I could reach it. But then, I highly doubted she'd be up for crawling through air vents or daring escapes or, well, anything else that would be needed. And taking off without her would just give Le Paradox another chance to repeat his evil monologue of evil. Awesome.

"Can I ask you something?"

I blinked, brought out of my thoughts. "If you solemnly swear not to repeat the answer in text, voice, or any other medium," I agreed suspiciously.

She shot me a wounded look, "I wouldn't!"

I shrugged, "Can't blame me for not believing you."

Letting out an aggravated breath, she turned to face me, "You're not really dating Sly Cooper, are you?"

I laughed. I laughed long and hard.

Back when she was in elementary school, Carmelita had spent six months trying, and eventually succeeding, to break the habit of biting her nails. Still, it was a behavior that still reared its head when she was filled with nervous energy, like she was just then.

She'd been chewing on her thumbnail for roughly the last hour as she went over the daily news reports. Her focus should have been on locating Cooper and, through him, locating Inspector Garter, who still hadn't turned up. But something just felt wrong about the reports. They were all focused on the sudden emergence of a new royal, Cyrille Le Paradox. Why was that so strange?

"Any luck?" Jenks asked, coming into the room and rubbing at his eyes. If Carmelita didn't know it was impossible, she'd have guessed that he hadn't slept since his daughter had vanished alongside Cooper.

She definitely couldn't tell him that she hadn't been working on the case. She was opening her mouth to respond when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. Frowning and checking the clock to confirm that, yes, it was two in the morning, she took out her phone and checked the caller ID.

Inspector Garter.

Eyes widening, she accepted the call and held the phone up to her ear, "Kr-"

"Don't say anything, don't do anything, just listen to me."

Carmelita choked the words off in her throat, forcing herself to appear calm.

Garter paused, as though testing to see whether she'd listen to him, then continued. "Grab Inspector Jenks and meet me behind the building. Don't bring anyone else, don't mention I called you. You've been following the Cooper gang for a long time, so I'm hoping you'll understand that, in this case, you'll need to see what's going on in order to believe it."

He hung up.

Carmelita looked up, saw Jenks looking at her, an expectant eyebrow raised, and grabbed her coat. "Come on."

Garter was, as promised, waiting for them in the alley. He looked like a wreck, disheveled and sleep deprived, but he didn't look like he was injured. He motioned for them to stay quiet and follow him, which they did.

When the alley widened out into a small loading area for the nearby buildings, Jenks broke the silence, "What is going on, Kristian? What happened to you?"

Avoiding their eyes, Garter said, "Long story short, Cooper isn't the guy we need to be going after. Le Paradox faked his royal lineage by doing some incredibly illegal things and he kidnapped your daughter to keep Cooper from stopping him. Going the legal channels to stop him is going to take too long. Cooper already took off to find Kaia, the rest of the gang is gathering reinforcements. I convinced them to let me grab you two to even out the criminals with some law enforcement." He finally looked back up at them. "Arresting the Coopers can wait. Right now, working with them is our best option."

Carmelita frowned hard, but knew that, in most cases, that was actually quite accurate. There were many criminals out there that were more of a danger to society than the Cooper gang could ever dream to be and, much of the time, they also wanted to take those criminals out. "Where is the gang?"

Jenks looked like he was forcibly controlling his blood pressure, but didn't protest. Garter nodded to himself, then checked his watch, "They should be here... now."

A high-pitched whine filled the area, going louder and louder until the air crackled like electricity and the same blue flash from the security tape filled the area. When it cleared, the Cooper van was idling next to Kristian.

The side door slid open and Bentley poked his head out. "Get in."

The van was filled with unfamiliar raccoons, one of whom clocked them and groaned in a thickly accented voice, "I'm meant to be retired!"

Carmelita was seriously curious about these reinforcements.

Reading through it again, I'm actually quite pleased with this chapter. It's one of the better ones, I think, which hopefully makes up for the last two feeling a bit rushed.

Okay, PSA TIME

This story is drawing to a close, so there are some things that need to be said.

First- Clearly, we haven't had an announcement of Sly 5 yet. I'm pretty sure my Tumblr inbox would be exploding if that had happened. Therefor, it looks like the sequel to this story won't be out for a while.

Second- That doesn't mean I'm not writing something for the series.

Third- No, I'm not telling you what it is yet, I just wanted you to know that I'm not going to vanish into the ether after this is finished.

Fourth- Some people are expressing concern about the ending of this story. To those people, I say, have patience, friends, you have not even read it yet.

Fifth- I just looked at my calender and it appears that the epilogue for this is going to go up the week before Christmas. That seems mean, doesn't it? Ending this right before Christmas? So I am going to try to implement another project (not the thing I'm writing!) on, or within a week of, Christmas. I'll give more details as the date gets closer and I have more of an idea of whether or not I'll be able to get the first part of the project up and running by that point. There's a financial aspect to it and I have a kitten who has been struggling with medical problems for most of her life, so most of my money goes to vet bills. The vet has been very kind and hugely supportive and has spent a lot of her own free time reading the latest scientific articles and researching medicines and calling experts and we think we're close to figuring out what's wrong, but we've thought that countless times before and my cat hasn't gotten better. So we'll see.

In summary- Do not panic, friends, all is well. Nightingale Syndrome may be ending, but I am not going anywhere. In fact, I will likely be providing you with much more content than before.

That does, however, remind me of one last thing. I absolutely love the fact that you guys enjoy what I do. I'm so grateful for your support and so happy that I can have some kind of positive effect on you. That said- I do these things for fun. I have a job, I'm in college, I'm constantly caring for my kitten, and I'm putting the finishing touches on the manuscript for my first original novel. This series, these characters, they're my happy place. I retreat here whenever I need to write something where I don't have to stress about appropriate description, world-building, or the location of every single comma. This is for fun. I wasn't even going to put the story online until a friend badgered me about it (you know who you are). Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I did and I'm astounded that so many people enjoy it. But I want it to be very clear that this is very much a hobby and, sometimes, other things are going to have to take priority (she says as she procrastinates on editing her actual manuscript).

Again, don't get me wrong, I'm not going anywhere. I've been writing this series for six years, if I was going to stop, I'd have done it before now. I'm just saying that if I take a while on this next story or next projects, it's probably because I'm trying to cope with other things, so just have patience with me. I know you can tell when my writing has been rushed and I very much want to take the appropriate time to write something enjoyable.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and I'll see you in a couple of weeks!

***EDIT***

Okay, pretty much immediately after posting this, I found out that Sanzaru made an announcement that they had no plans to make another Sly Cooper game. While that doesn't make it impossible, it makes it more unlikely and it would take years for it to happen.

So... my other statements about other content still stand. I still have two other projects for you guys while I sort out my plans for the series in light of this new information. Give me some time to process it and keep an eye on the blog for updates. I'm serious, that is the most up-to-date source of information about this series. I very rarely respond to PMs through ffdotnet, but pretty much always answer the asks I get on Tumblr because everyone can see the answer that way and it should cut down on repeat questions. But PLEASE do not message me about this demanding to know my next course of action. I'll make an announcement when I decide on it.