Chapter 14- Double Dimitri II

Sneakin' In

Sly was ready to stick his head out from the bushes to scare Penelope. This should shock her so much that she would fall in the small swamp beside them. Unfortunately, before he was able to, he heard a squishing sound coming up on the safe house. He quickly had his cane out until he heard they were simply Murray's footsteps.

"Hey there," he said casually. Murray put Bentley down on the little stump that seemed to have been made to accommodate his shell.

"Thanks for the pick-up, buddy," he said to Murray. Around twenty minutes after Bentley had set off for his mission, their binocucoms crackled to life. It was Bentley, requesting to be picked up. Now, sitting down on his stump, he inspected his wheel chair. "Look at what they did to my wheel chair!" he grumbled.

"Who's they?" asked Penelope concernedly. A light went off in Bentley's eyes, something as clear to them after years of knowing him as the sun in the sky.

"What'd you forget to tell us?" asked Sly with a smirk.

"Professionals. There are pros here. He had a camo suit, and you could just tell the guy had training. My guess is that there is a bunch of them all over the place. He said he knew we were here since the Brasilia airport. They're probably with that group, the one that's been following us around the world." This concerned the gang greatly.

"Let's get this over with and get out of here," whispered Sly and jumped out to the thick jungle. Bentley was instantly on his laptop. Sly climbed up a tree and flicked on his binocucom. He saw the blue signal at the back of the fort.

"Everything's uploaded into your binocucom, Sly," Bentley said. Sly's icon said "Sneakin' In". Sly couldn't help but grin. Bentley always made things a little more fun to do.

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All of Sly's things were gone. Carmelita cut open the mattress, turned over his wardrobe, but there was no trace. Did he want to be caught? Sly wasn't stupid, she knew this as a fact. In addition, if he had been "kidnapped", why would he have packed his things?

For her investigation's sake, she was assuming Sly masterminded it all. It was obviously not true but she needed something to be figuring out. He had packed up in quite a messy hurry. Many things had been overturned, drawers pulled out, even the rug had been ripped out and floorboards wrecked. He must have been getting his secret stash (just treat him as a criminal, Carmelita, bear with it).

Carmelita was having a hard time pretending Sly was guilty. Yet Bane's evidence had been pretty concrete. He was probably just undercover. A cover so deep that only the Queen knew about it. Maybe that was it. What poor Carmelita didn't realize was the man hiding in the closet. As soon as Carmelita went to look for clues in the washroom, he shot off to the balcony. He fumbled a little bit with the lock of the balcony and opened it as fast as possible. Damn thing squeaked. Her pulled out his pistol should the detective come around the corner. She didn't. He quickly jumped out over the railing and landed on an air conditioner three stories down.

Carmelita jumped around the corner with her gun raised as soon as she heard the intruder jump off the balcony. She peeked over the balcony cautiously. A suited chimpanzee was making his escape from flagpole to flagpole, air conditioner to air conditioner, and pigeon net to pigeon net. Carmelita followed suit. She hopped down on top of a wobbly flagpole and observed. He was fast. Suddenly, his pant leg snagged on an old air conditioner. She continued her descent but knew that she wouldn't reach him before he freed himself. Carmelita jumped into a balcony and opened the unlocked door. She didn't find anyone and ran out the door.

Carmelita ran down the staircase as fast as possible. He had been about four stories down. She ran to the apartment she thought he was in front.

"Police, open up!" she cried.

"Wha-? Who the hell? I haven't done anything! Leave me alone!" a man cried from inside. Carmelita kicked the door down. It hit the man on the other side and he yelped. "Police brutality!" he shouted as she ran past him and looked around his balcony. The chimp had freed himself and was continuing his descent. She almost went after him but something in the corner of her eye caught her attention. It was a piece of fabric from the man's pants. She picked it out of the hazardous air conditioner and placed it in a plastic baggie.

Carmelita saw a brief glimpse of purple before flying across the balcony and hitting the wall. The man had sneaked up on her and struck her.

"You tell Dimitri I'm still coming for him you little rat!" he cried. Carmelita fired off a quick shot at him. He struggled with the electricity but continued towards her. "Rat… I'll kill you!" She jumped off the balcony and held onto a flag one floor down. She shimmied over a little and then jumped back on to the balcony. McSweeney was caught off guard. "Huh?" was all he managed to get out before she gave him a good dosage of electricity. He fell over still twitching from the volts going through him.

"I think it's time for a little interrogation."

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Sly studied the guard's vest. It hung loosely over his structure. He saw the problem. The straps hadn't been securely fastened. This was going to be practice. Sly dropped right on top of him and gave him a good smack with the bottom of his cane. The guard pulled Sly off and threw him a good distance. Stupid move. Sly was still used to his pistol moves. No more pistol whipping. He had to go over the Thievius Raccoonus a little more. He raised the C of his cane, as if seeing it for the first time.

"Oh crap," he moaned. The man ran at him and smacked him in the face with the butt of his weapon. It was hard to stay conscious after a blow like that. Sly sent out a kick and jumped up using his arms to land on the guard's head. Not remembering much of his cane technique, he decided on repeatedly swinging it at the small of the guard's back. It seemed to get the job done, as the guard groaned all of a sudden and fell over. He then proceeded to twitch like a cat's tail when it's annoyed. Sly didn't know what nerve he had hit, but it certainly took the guy down.

He suddenly remembered something he had done in France a couple of years ago. A security guard had caught him stealing some painting or other. He had rushed Sly with his baton drawn. Sly had (gracefully, effortlessly, whatever he was not now-y) jumped over the bewildered man and hit him two quick times in specific places of his back. He had done it precisely as the Thievius Raccoonus had shown and yielded perfect results. He had lain there twitching as this guard now lay on a bush, twitching away. Sly remembered being proud of himself for doing it correctly and Sly was no murderer so he figured the guard would be fine.

He dumped him under some large vines and continued on his trek. Sly had some trouble holding the cane in his mouth as he scaled the slippery tree. Climbing came naturally, just not gracefully, which was what Sly Cooper was all about. He used to be carefree about his work. Climbing and running on thin lines of any sort were as elementary as breathing. Sly slid down a vine but almost lost his balance and went tumbling down to the trio of guards down below. He decided to stick around for a while to see what they knew.

"- took down Budlovsky just like half an hour ago!" one was saying.

"Yeah I saw Johnson and Santiago pulling in one of them Special Ops guys too. His face was real bloody and messed up," said a skinny fox.

"Special Ops? You mean them camouflaged freaks that the boss brought with him?" he whistled. "I thought them guys was tough."

"Hey Matheson," said the first one into his earpiece, "you getting all this?"

"Yeah! I hope it's not that Murray guy, I have nightmares about him!" came the scared voice on the other line.

"I hear he rips people's heads right off!" said fox guard, adding fuel to the fire.

"Yeah, Majal, the one that was stationed in India, he said that the hippo guy, what was his name, Murray? Yeah, that guy, he fought Rajan one-on-one, mano a mano!" added the third.

"What?!" came the earpiece. "I seen a picture of him, the guy's a tank! Murray won I'm guessing. Well, I'm keeping my back to a wall I don't need no damn hippo-"

"Ladies, cut the social chit chat!" came a coarse voice to all their earpieces.

"Yes sir," they all mumbled. One of them, covering his mouthpiece, added "Special Ops bastards" before they all became quiet.

Sly was having a hard time stifling his laughter. It's good to see we have some myths running around. He quickly continued up his current tree and jumped to the next one. The camouflaged men had been brought in by the organization behind all this. Soon he was facing the southern wall.

The crack ran from the top of the wall to about the floor of the second floor. It was a thin little hairline until about the middle, where the debris had fallen out and left a banana shape. There was a sleeping guard under the crack, "guarding it". Sly quickly measured the distance between the farthest-reaching tree limb and the crack. He would probably reach it without difficulty. Sly backed up to the trunk and began his run to the edge of the longest possible branch that would still sustain his weight. Upon reaching the tip, the branch bent down but then whipped back up. He used this momentum to launch himself at the crack. He liked to call it the "flyswatter technique". Sly squeezed in between the debris and pointy metal spikes. Eventually he reached a metal end to his small banana-shaped tunnel. Sly listened carefully but, hearing nothing, gave the wall a shove. It moved away easily. He quickly squeezed through and out it back in place. It was a filing cabinet on wheels. Well, that's perfect for keeping people out. Idiots.

Sly was in the middle of a gray hallway. He dashed down to the corner and took a quick peek. There was a slumped over guard beside the door, sleeping.

"Give me a break," he muttered to himself. He was itching for combat, but stuck to the walls and slipped past him.

"How's it going, buddy?" asked Bentley.

"Well I'm in," he replied smoothly. "But this ain't no armory. I hope the rest of those blueprints of yours are right."

"I was afraid of that, sorry. Don't worry, that seemed like the only thing that they might have changed." His apology was genuine. Sly continued with the old plan. He went up one set of stairs and checked through a little window in the door there. Some guards were actually patrolling the corridor. Sly looked around for an alternative entrance and found just the thing.

"Hey Bentley, is the air vent in staircase B-2 in any way connected to the control room?" he asked, eyeing the beckoning air duct.

"Oh, let me just… open this here… and… yes! Just straight up and to your left actually!" came Bentley's gleeful response. Sly thanked him and swung open the little crack of an entrance. Thankfully, a space like this was a big suite for a Cooper! He crawled in and followed Bentley's instructions. Soon he was in the control room.

"OK, I'm in," he whispered. Sly shoved the now incapacitated guard off the chair and fell into it. Am I actually tired from this! Man, I guess I'm just used to running in with a warrant and taking the direct approach now!

"Excellent!" cheered Bentley. "I can't believe its working! Our first heist as a team in who knows how long! Alright well, I'll tell Penelope, wait a second." Bentley changed channels.

"Hey Pen, where are you?" She had left, RC car under her arm, to get better reception with the car. She said that if she stayed at the safe house that the signal might cut.

"I'm in position! The car's parked in a bush right outside the gates."

"Hey Sly," came Bentley's voice, "open the gates when you're ready."

"Oh, I'm ready!" he laughed. Sly hit the switch and opened the gates.

A/N BOOM! My hopefully triumphant return. I owe this new chapter to Wolvmbm and asfd, whose reviews motivated me to continue the story. I am a bit confused with asfd's review, but hey, a review's a review, right? Well thanks; it really means a lot, you guys. I will continue the story full steam ahead (until I require some more motivation *wink wink*).