It was a long while before I woke up, right in the middle of the Island of Boara Boara. Thankful to be reunited with the Van, I used the internet to confirm my suspicions. Murray burst through the jungle yelling that Sly, Penelope and the others had been captured, and that they required my super-intelligence to save them. Murray told me what little he knew of the situation...

Sly and the others were now guests of an evil Tiki king called Tiki-no-wanna, and the mysteries surrounding his origin were many. They say he just appeared to the natives one day as a sign from thier god, but he was inexperienced. What made matters even worse is that his old teacher was Mz Ruby, our old enemy. This was long before we had even met her...He soon found himself using his new powers to sink tankers, create unearthly graveyards in the furthest parts of the island and even steal passangers just so he could have thier socks.

If my calculations are correct, the nervous Cheetah is holed up in the jungle, ready to cook Sly and the gang into tiki food. Poor Penelope...Unless I save them, i'll either have to get used to losing an entire team, or even worse...Learn how to play chess with MURRAY. Like there was even a choice...

THe sky turned crystal blue as the dense, lush forests bounced the colours with thier emerald green. The villages small fire pit glowed red hot, and the smoke billowed out towards the sky. Across the way, a huge mask appeaered, with a huge painted leering grin with giant teeth, and its leapord arms potruded from it sides. Tiki no-wanna stolled out of the jungle to the village clearing, followed by his few sloth warriors with the entire Cooper gang trussed up and hog-tied onto sticks. Dimitris eyes darted to the sloth, who turned to him and gave a lick of his lips and rubbed his stomach with his free hand. Sly rolled his eyes and kept struggling. Shelia, not used to such hot conditions, was sweltering in her fur coat. They finnally untied the gang, put them in shackles, and laid them onto the ground in front of a huge throne with a red carpet. Tiki sat down on it, and leaned forward, hiding his excitement at having actually caught an intruder. Mind you, he thought, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to eat them. He adopted a deep, monosyllabic voice and whispered to one of his guards. Then he pointed to Sly.

"Him...he make bad meat. Panda...he make good meat!"

Bently lept out of the van in front of Murray, wearing everything he could that would protect him. His helmet was underneath his old protective hat, and he also wore all of the jungle gear. Murray couldn't contain himself with laughter. As he got up, he suddenly stopped as he saw that Bently looked so upset. He went over to him and put his finger under his chin, lifting the old turtles head up.

"Chin up, Bently. Things look bad an' all, and I know for a fact that you're a big safety first guy. But I've already screwed up protecting you before. I won't make that mistake again." He fastned his mask and turned sternly, but in a way that looked more like he was generally angry rather than at Bently. "Friends stick together...I said it before, now I'm sayin' it again. Don't let the numbers get you down. Murray will always be there." He heaved a sigh, put on a happy face, and watched as a secretly smiling Bently reloaded his gear. ten minutes later, and they were all ready to trek. Bently thought it was interesting at how many times they had to save Sly recently. It made up for more than enough times when it was the other way round. He wheeled himself into the thicket, and Murray gingerly followed.

An hour later and they had made it to a large cliff face where they observed the actions of the big Tiki man himself. Bently recorded everything that went on in his notebook, while Murray quivered with anticipation of being caught or not. He watched as the slow Sloths swung from tree to tree. He began to gnaw on his gloves and looked around nervously. Bently suddenly waved his hand as if to hush Murray, grabbed his binnoccucom, and shot the Sloth with a sleep dart. The Sloth instantly fell asleep and hung from the tree to give the slight impression that he was still keeping watch. Tiki went over to two guards and whispered to them. They went into a small hut, smashing open the door. A couple of seconds later and they had pulled out the rest of the cooper gang and had them kneeling in front of the throne. Tiki was bored at doing this every few minutes, and was glad that it was time to dispose of them.

"So, you are probably trying to think about why you could possibly be in trouble here. I am big chief, ready to create juice!"

"Juice?" Sly was confused.

"Tiki create big juice that make him stronger. Then when midnight come me take big guys to witness my power! Juice made from guys like...YOU!" He saw that Sly was still confused. He sighed. "Arrgh, the things I...look, I want to rule the world right? For now I've been doing petty little things, and now? There is an ancient legend that if I take a special potion at midnight tomorrow, I will become ruler of the many powers I shall soon hold!"

He uttered yet more strange mumblings as he gestured towards the cliff edge, laughing as he finished. Bently was interested, as mainly to the wellfare to the animals of the jungle... the gang were terrrified..what fate could possibly meet them at the end. Sly was first. He was prodded to walk over to the edge. He did so, and looked down. Big mistake. He now knew why it was so hot. The huge volcano below him was not particuarly violent, but it didn't need to be. The cone was almost filled to the brim with lava, and little trickles were dripping over the top and cooling incredibly fast. He gulped as he saw bones decorating the cliff edge at his feet, and wandered what strange creatures had been destroyed by the tikis to produce them. Tiki came close to him, and whispered into his ear.

"Are you prepared to die, Cooper?" He prodded, and Sly shut his eyes. As he did, a strange noise came from nearby. Both he and Tiki turned to see Murray swinging towards him, and before Tiki could blink, he suddenly felt very drowsy...Murray dropped Sly off at a tree, and looked to see if Bently was coping with freeing the others. MUrray hugged Sly, but suddenly felt himself being pulled back, taking Sly with him. Thier eyes moved to Murrays foot which was caught in the rope. The screamed as they hurtled like a catapult towards the ropes knot, which was unfortunately in the prickliest tree in the area. They flew once more, and the rope snapped and tossed them towards the clearing. Sly sat up from under Murrays arm. His face was bruised and he began to make inchomprehensible noises. From underneath both of them, a small purple hand emerged.

"Dude, I think my spleens in my leg now."

Bently had already got Dimitri, Panda king, Harold and Shelia to his side, but he watched as Tiki and his guards awoke. He dashed over to the others that were left, and hid in the bushes. They watched as Sly, Murray and the Guru were hauled off towards the jungle. Bently was distraught...

It was awful...4 members were now captured, and I was left with the most inexperienced members of the Cooper gang. Worst still was that Tiki now knew that there were others to watch out for, and his new found power would mean that he would be even tougher to confront. We trudged back to the van, and Panda king , who had overheard everything from his hiding place, told us the situation...

Tiki was now awaiting nightfall, and had gone to the darkest part of the jungle. He was now inside a graveyard base, using magic both Tiki and Voodoo to protect himself. If my calculations are correct, there is only one person who will be able to beat him, and while they don't have to be a member of the team, they'll still be a handful. The only question that remains is how to free Mz Ruby herself...

BENTLY SAVES THE GANG (AGAIN) IN...

TURTLE SOUP... eek!

Dimitri peered through the murky water. He wasn't too sure why it was green, until he saw several bones float past. Oh boy, he thought. This certainly wasn't the most glamourous mission he'd ever been on. He finally surfaced and gasped. In front of him was not just a fortress, but also several other medium sized buldings an constructs surrounding him, like a layout of a themepark, the decoration of a horror movie and each with different purposes. He tried to remeber how sly had moved, as he clumsily leaped onto a tiki statue and heaved himself onto a small building. He got out his poorly made binnoccucom, and whizzed it round his head. His earpeice buzzed frantically, and he bashed it with the flat of his hand, only to realise how stupid thia was once the feedback kicked in. He finally adjusted it, and kept at Bentlys wavelength.

"This is smokinfish778 reporting, bro. Y'know, I'd spam this if I could."

"I'm sure Dimitri, but I think we'd better focus on the task here. You need to take some photos of the different areas and of Tikis base. If we can find out exactly what's going on here, I can draw up a plan. This should be very intrieuging, and we might just be helping the Island."

Dimtri aknowleged and zoomed in on the furthest base up a mountain side, jutting out and surrounded by jungle. In fact almost the entire area was either caves or jungle, with the moon appearing through cracks in the leaves above. Dimitri was sure that it was only 6;00PM, providing the reason to the regions nickname as 'the plane of darkness.' He took the photo and Bently looked it over.

"Hmm...A small weapons factory, but guarded by skeletal poles and candles, with a huge gate...well, he really has become a Ruby wannabee. She used to own a monstrous abomination of unquestionable size...This could be the same pet."

Dimitri shivered..He hated slimy snakes. Well, he technically acted like one, but that wasn't the point. He clumsily felt for the roof as he looked through the binnoccucom, realizing how far from the edge he was. He sharply crouched back. He then zoomed in on a nearby swamp patch.

"That's probably where the potion is made...interesting. What if we..oh, a plans coming together..."

He then spotted a mansion and took a photo.

"Ghost mansion...a voodoo mansion. Where else would we get a safe house? We'll have to clear it I guess."

Dimitri took a photo of a huge and long area where Guards patrolled up and down, and water rushed out of huge pipes.

"Ahh, a huge water deposit. And I think that's a graveyard and moselium in the distance...Good work, now head to the fortress. There's so many ways in.."

Dimitri was incredibly nervous now. "Dude, there are too many ways for hot diggity Cooper to get in...not Dimitri Lesteau! I can't crawl through tiny low fat hot vent! I need a..."

"uhh, stepladder. For some reason there's a convienient stepladder to the upper door. There you go."

"Uhh...Dimitri out!" Dimitri hurriedly made his way to the step ladder, and climbed through the door. Inside was a huge wooden complex, with a small area in the middle. Inside of this was Tiki and one of his minions, and a small set of smartly dressed characters. He was just in the act of dictating to the small crocodile a series of updates to his journal. Dimitri took a shot of a huge electrical set up in the background. He then tapped a hearing bug to his thumb, and listened in.

"This is going to be hard work. Chief, I'm not sure if we can produce enough moskito juice in one week, or seagulls wings. this potion is way too big..."

"I don't care," snapped Tiki, his eyes blazing, "This is my operation and my era of darkness! With the Racoon at the altar and the mouse at the weapon factory, and that stupid Guru controlling my swamp creatures, production will be way up!"

"But don't you think it was a little harsh to put big hippo in treadwheel..."

"Doesn't matter! What matters is my darkness! Soon it will spread so far that the entire world will come to me for light! I shall promise them it and then...take it away!" He began laughing a deep, hollow laugh, which rose to a manic cacophany of noise. Dimitri suddenly felt a ripple in his throat, and then his nose. He gave a huge sneeze. Tiki instantly jerked to his minion and whispered "Ghuzundheit." Safe for the moment Dimitri crept out the back door, and promptly fell down the step ladder.

Bently really wasn't sure what to expect. He never had to deal with inexperienced thieves before...normally it was just him and the gang explaining it to everyone else. Now it was just him! First thing was first though...

"Now everyone, the high point of this is getting Carmelita on the track of coming here. If we could create a signal of some kind, we could always have her drop in. I've made contact with Mz Ruby herself through a special jail internet service of my own, and she has made requests that we destroy the gooey tar. To do this, we're gonna need Sly, Guru and Murray. Penelope cannot be freed yet for reasons I've yet to understand...Panda King, you and Shelia will blow up the top floor of the mansion so that we can use it as a base of operations. I have my own reasons for this. Harold will do some ghost hunting with this new super charmifier I've created, while I will use this energy to free Sly and Murray. Hopefully all three of us will be able to free the Guru. And yes, that includes you too Dimitri. Now let's get moving, we've got a tight schedule..."

Carmelita sipped her coffee as she made her rounds. She wasn't used to heading into the prison, but the e-mail that had been sent to her sounded extremely urgent, and so had the seargent on the other end. She turned a corner and walked into a cell block, filled with some of the worlds most hated criminals. She jumped as Rajan made a growl, narrowing his eyes at her and scratching at the bars, muttering under his breath how he'd love to have been a rug dealer. Muggshot was next, trying to have an intelligent argument against Jean Bison, consisting of Shakespeare and the best ways to cut up a log with your teeth. And in a small corner the Contessa was pulling apart a dead fly, twitching, with Don Octavio trying out some new songs in the next cell. Carmelita soon made her way to the final cell, in which a huge crocodile was sitting. She narrowed her eyes as she sat in the darkness, opened her snout and flicked her toungue, clenching her fist. She then got onto all fours and disappeared into the darkness, suddenly pressing herself against the glass looking right back at Carmelita. And when the scare had sunk in, she gave a gnarled toothy grin and a wheezing laugh. She spoke with a strong southern accent.

"Inspector Fox, I've been expecting you to my current domain. Y'all think jus' cause I'm behind bars that my hatred and threats must be gone huh? And it looks like y'all forgot how much I like to scare people. Pity." She giggled with a slight girlish glee, and clapped her hands. Mz Ruby had never truly grown up, and had spent a lot of her life alone. The lonliness had certainly gone to her head. But her eyes lit up as Carmelita held up a warrant. And Mz. Ruby knew exactly what it was for...

Shelia set up the wire as King added powder keg after powder keg to the growing pile. She watched as he waited, and at how his eyes flickered into joyful glee as he struck a match. She was feeling pretty cold herself. After all, they were in an old house that was probably infested with Voodoo magic reminders. Walking round had not changed her opinoin with candles lit all over the place. Each room was full of huge skulls and masks, as if to frighten intruders. Tiki obviously enjoyed his decorations, and his own ability to make the place look like a proper voodoo lodge. She looked at King again, but saw him as a young child, playing with his new toys. Suddenly she saw him make a turn as he looked at his reflection in the flame. He stood up, brushed his hands down, and ran, with Shelia close behind. The entire mansion was filled with the deafaning noise of its own destruction. The entire first floor was alredy engulfed with flames, and Shelia was just adding the final vent fan to stop it from reaching the floor below. Like anybody wasn't going to notice this, she thought. As they did so a huge helicopter flew towards the explosion, and came to rest on the ground next to the Mansion. Carmelita hopped out and took a look at the damage. Gwen heaved herself and Mz Ruby out to check. She turned to Carmelita.

"So, what to do next? Ruby can get us to the different places, but I really don't think this will work. I mean, a criminal loose out here?" Gwen watched a Carmelita fingered the rubble. She lifted up a small piece of a tiki mask, embedded on a skull like object. She took a look at the small fortress and guard Barracks, then at the various different areas. She looked at the front area of the mansion, with its decaying plants and huge gates. She then turned her attnetion to the now one-floored mansion. Taking up her shotgun, she made a point over to a small town in the distance.

"Tommorrow we return at midnight, just as the message said, and then...and then." She paused and thought of what could be done against Tiki. There were guards littering the entire area, and she knew that only a fool would attempt an arrest on thier own in a place like this. She picked up her com-link, and contacted the nearest HQ.

Harold and Bently made thier way through the vast jungle. It was an incredibly creepy place, and Bently was almost shaking. He took out the map and looked it over a few times, and lowered it to see that they had reached thier destination. Bently shivered once more. He wasn't normally afraid of ghosts, but...He quickly wheeled over to one of the stone tablets and read the inscription.

"According to this, we're in the mosilleum of not a few bodies, but a ghost summoning area. Here many ghosts can travel, but the riddle tells me that we should be doing a few hiests from inside. It may look creepy, but I know for a fact that Tiki has good contacts. Meaning..."

"Meaning he'll actually have equpped the area with a huge anount of security. Needed to trap..."

"Sly. My guess is that he's inside, and while you can easily help me with the puzzles, only I can be ushered in, for I know the what the plans are. That, and I owe Sly a bunch...GAHHH!" An earsplitting noise starteled the both of them, and a white specter in a robe came floating towards them. Bently was terrified, but Harold had whipped over and pulled the sheet off. Underneath was a poor soul with a huge shark biting on its tail feathes. The ghost gave an errie glow, and an irritating squawk. And Bently knew exactly who it was...

"CAPTAIN LEFWEE!"

The captain brushed himself down and pulled the shark away from him. His hat was in tatters, and his face was pretty smarmy. "Aye, that I be, Bently. To think that I, the smartest man on the seven seas, should end up shark bait. And I blame you! I feel like tellin ya that I'm now the smartest ghost in the seven afterlifes, and who has the last laugh now!" He crowed, but Bently shook his head. Harold was still trying to bat away the ghost shark as it came to him. Bently scratched his chin in thought, and finally had a brain wave.

"Lefwee, I'm here to rustle up some ghosts and...

"Take them? You can have them! To think I choose this relaxing resort as my resting place and it gets interrupted by stupid ghosts moaning and groaning all over..."
"Fine, fine. Listen, If I can get rid of them using Harold here, could you possibly join us briefly for this scam against the guy who summoned the ghosts here in the first place?"

Lefwee thought about it, and shook his head so vigourously that it came clean away. Attatching it back, he cleared his throat. "No, I need more than that. I might be dead, but ya can still make it worth my while with a bit of booty, eh?"

"Uhh...I can, but I don't know what you could possibly want with it where you're going..."

He watched as Lefwee nodded and gave an' ARRRGH!,' and handed him a talisman, winking as he did so. Bently nodded and rolled over to Harold, handing him the Talisman and attatchint the ghost pack. Harold starained his neck to look at Bently addin the final touches.

"So, why do you need me to help? What can I ..."
"These ghosts are fast, Harold. I need you to catch up to them and tag them, draining thier energy. I'tll be hard with all the secret caves round here, but I have an eighty-eight percent confidence in you. And that statistic does mean that there's a chance that too much mojo will probably either overload the machine and curse you."

Harold lauged and nodded sarcastically. "No pressure then." He launched himself at full speed, running faster than he ever had before. What a thrill it was to be running again with the wind in his face and a set of creepy ghosts to capture. He glided round the area, tagging his fisrat ghost and watching as the gauge on his arm filled up. He lurched round a corner as the second ghost made its way into a small cave. He ducked and followed, tagging any ghost slow enough to fall behind. Soon only this one ghost was left, riding along to the mosilleum. It turned and jeered, only to find itself caught by Lefwee. A few minutes later and it had been dissolved to little more than magic. Bently gave Harold a thumbs up, and attatched the flask to a small tanker on the door of the mosilleum. He made a signal for Harold to stay back, and he wheeled into the dark area. As he ventured inside, he realised that he'd forgotten just how scary it was to be alone agian. Technically he wasn't, but it felt like he was. He suddered as he thought back to how scary it had been when he was alone in Prague. Rounding the first corner he assesed the situation. Sly was asleep, streched out on a slab, unable to move. Various weapons surrounded him, along with a couple of laser defences and inescapable elevator music. He then spotted a small computo, and quickly whipped out his hacking disk. Heading over to the controls, he hacked in and commanded control over a small virus. He scoured the system, and reminded himself of how long it had been since he had seen any real tough hacking action in the past few weeks. He dodged the nodes and other protections, and made his way round all obstacles. He thought about His first hacking attempt, and thought at how prominent that was now. It seemed that whenever Sly was captured, it took Bentlys own skills of hacking to do the job. A thiefs job of hacking helping another thief. He'd draw up a chart of it later, right now he knew what had to be done. The computor finally blinked and sent out a powerful shock to the lasers. They disappeared, and Bently wheeled up to Sly. He began to stir and finally opened his eyes.

"Gee, Bently, am I glad to see you. I think I know a little of how we can get Tiki..."

"Doesn't matter at this current moment," said Bently, unlocking the shackles that held Sly. "What matters is that we get Murray. Hopefully he'll be absolutely on top of his situation."

"Right over here guys!"

They turned to see Murray running inside a treadmill like a little hamster, panting and trying to reach the cheese dangling above his nose. Sly had already dashed over and was hitting as many buttons as possible on the control panel. Murray found himself still inside the treadwheel, but now it had detatched itself from the machine and was heading out of the building. Murray screamed "I CAN'T STOP!" as he hurtled over a small lump and through the doorway, leaving Sly and Bently to watch him roll. Murrays journey kept on and on, until he began to think of his master. He adopted a determined look, and got into ball form, rolling towards a swamp gat. He burst through its doors, only to see the Guru fending off a huge swamp beast. It knocked his walking stick out of his hand and got ready to pounce. Instead it found itself yelling in pain as Murray smashed into its back, and it sucked itself down into the swamp water. The Guru looked up, and for the first time in his life, he slowly spoke in english...

"That's... my... boy!"

Bently waited for Dimitri to stop playing with the cue cards, and set up the projector.

"As many of you may well know, Mz Ruby is ready to be freed, and Tiki is ready to take his potion. Here's the plan...I'll sneak into Carmelitas makeshift hut and free Ruby. I'll bring her here and then jet over to save Penelope with Shelias help. Then, I'll need Dimitri to poison the water in the water works. This will contaminate the enourmous potion in the swamp vat, as Tiki needs to bathe in it. He'll come running, take a dunk, and won't get a single drop of power. Finally I'll have him duke it out with Mz Ruby, and the rest of you can completely strip his house bare of treasure! See...I always have a backup objective, thanks to Operation Bad Vibrations...uh, are they that bad?..."

The area stood quiet for countless minutes as the wind made gentle breezes and the animals made thier nightly noise. The small makeshift wooden shack in the distance housed the incredibly evil Mz Ruby. Ten years of waiting had gone into her confrontation with her former pupil, and she wasn't going to let anything get in the way of it now. She remembered how she had first met Sly, thier deadly battle over the swamp, and she knew that ther Cooper gang was her current contact. But soon she would have her revenge...she'd take down tiki, absorb his mojo, and finally use it to wipe out the Cooper gang. She looked at the bars holding her, and knew that soon she would soon be free. Bently opened the door as gently as he rolled across to the scheming crocodile, his brow slightly damp. She folded her arms and turned away.

"So ah was right, it's the Cooper vibes that a-comin towards me now. This wasn't common knowledge, Turtle. What makes you think I'm gonna help you?"
"Well, Panda Kings helping us now. Surley you just want to defeat your former pupil for misuse of his power, right?" He scratched the back of his head, wondering if he really was having this conversation. She picked at her fingernails.

"Fine, sugah, I will. But if see you gang-a-crossin, then I'm gonna come after you. You guys normally upkeep bargains and stuff, right?"

"Right...now, we need to go, before Inspector Fox makes her due entrance..."

Dimitri waded throught the sewage. The smell of rotting fish and bones wafted up to his nose. He gagged, but he kept moving. I f was far more prefferable to swimming in the stuff. He started to think he was right about giving up diving...he was a forger at heart. Going into retirement wouldn't be so bad...a little house in paris, a studio, and he'd be set for life. Maybe it was time he gave up the Cooper gig, cramping his style and all of his fashion. He watched as the water turned green, and checked his watch...it was 11:55...only five more minutes and the 'package' would be en-route. The finishing touches were added, and he sat in the water, and removed his breathing mask. The tiki guards began to come forward, and he took each one out with a dart or two. He looked out to see the Tiki Cheetah himself making his way towards the vat. This was it...

Penelope sat in the darkness, afraid. She knew that if she so much as moved she would either hit a mine of wake up the swamp beast. Tiki had already ordered her to create some new types of weapons, and she had only just realised that he had actually just been trying to torture her with fear like a lab rat. And she was no lab rat. She gently moved to check the area around her, and realising it was safe, pulled out a torch. She set it down, pulled out a pen and some note paper, and tried to make sense of what was going on. If her math was right, then Tiki wouldn't have taken the potion yet, and she had been inside her prison for over three hours. She suddenly froze as the Beast made a stir, and its head poked out from the water. It looked sleepily round, sneezed, and went back below the surface. She sighed with relief, and suddenly found her mouth stopped by a hand. She looked up to see Bently, his weelchair held up by a cable on the celing, and he slowly pulled her up with the wire raising him. They stood on the roof, and before he could say anything, she fell into his arms. Shelia stood in the background, arms folded, happy she had done her good deed for the day.

Tiki was already settleing himself inside the vat, and the clock finally struck twelve. But...something was wrong. The vat bubbled as Tiki emerged, he clenched his fists and...okay, maybe nothing was wrong. Dimitri mopped his brow and Tiki wondered what was going on. A famillair voice came from behind him.

"So, Tiki-no-wanna, we meet again darlin."

He swiveled ound, and norrowed his eyes.

"Ruby, my teacher. I thought you fled when I betrayed you years ago. Still, I shall ask you to leave. If you do not..."

"Knock it off, Charles," Ruby yawned, "You and me both know that underneath you're still a colledge kid...after all, it was only a year ago that you became Tiki. That island party that you threw was a disaster. It's no wonder the natives thought your glasses were cool, because they got brains like fish-paste! And I know your voice still breaks..."

"It DOES nOt...oh dear." He clutched his throat and removed his mask, revealing a weedy cheetah with thick milk bottle glasses, his eyes filled with anger. He pointed accusingly.

"That does it! We're gonna dance to the deatch, right here...RIGHT NOW!" He put his mask back on, and began hurling shapes at her for her to dodge. Mz Ruby dodged them all, and launched some of her own.

In the meantinme, Sly had managed to travers the complex, with a huge sack of jewells already ladedned across his back. He flicked all off switches, and opened the huge double door as the gang were finally let in. They all stopped and stared, as a huge pile of gold stood before them. Panda King bowed, and the others began to haul the gold. Sly smiled and turned to Bently.

"One more for the vault, eh?" Sly laughed, and the gang heaved sacks upon sacks into the underbelly of the van. Suddenly, Mz. Ruby came flying through the wall, and Tiki stepped through the new whole.

"A-HAH! See...I had the backup potion all along! Of couse, it's past midnight..I'll try again tommorrow. For now I'm gonna enjoy poundin...WHAT! MY TREASURE! IT'S...YOU!" He turned to Sly, eyes blazing. Bently suddenly found himself accidentally pushed as Tiki sent Sly and the rest of the gang into a magical force-field. Small tribal guards gathered round and kept the feild up. Bently had had enough, as he rolled behind the cheetah.

"Hey you, neanderthal! You need some lessons in chemistry as to what happens when I do this!"

Tiki turned to see bently mixing some water and adding in a vibrating magnet. "As you csan see, the vibrator is making the water go crazy, but the magnet is pulling the gravity all over the place. The mini waves are attacking the bar, as you can see, creating a cool wave." He watched as Tiki stood, bemused. Bently continued. "Earlier today I added a huge magnetic force to a tiny capsule and attatched it to your back. I then added a vibrator to the nearby pool of water in this building, with a second magnet. The minute I press this button you will be pulled towards the force, the seismic vibrator would activate and several waves of water would engulf you. Enjoy, and I hope we've all learned something today..I have." He pressed the switch, and Tiki was pulled as fast as possible into the pool. As he did, LeFwee lept out and glared horribly at Tiki. He may have been late, but he was certainly not unwelcome...

The gang held me up like I was some kind of champion, and I was proud that for once I had done it...science had triumphed against bad magic. Tiki was unfortunate to be knocked into a generator while he was wet, due to the scare of LeFwee, causing a further shock. Both he and Mz. Ruby were locked up by Inspector Fox.

It was great to finally be seen as 'the hero'. I enjoyed every minute of celebration that we had, and amongst the excitement I forgot that it was my birthday. While I believed that there advances of presents were a little disappointing to the hopes of a new biological warfare set to take out enemies, Sly came through with it once we ransacked a nearby gift shop. With a break from the usual RALTIO business, we saw the sights of Boara Boara and relaxed. Sly was a little aggaravted that I had even asked LeFwee to temporarily join, but He lightend up when I brought out a ghost vaccum to hold him. One less in the van is fine by me.

Sly, Murray and I were almost used to being apart from each other, and realised that this outing had proved that if the Cooper gang ever got into a mess, our good friends would sort it. That, and they'd make a fine gang on thier own. Hmmm...I wonder...