MERRY CHRISTMAS/OTHER RELIGIOUS HOLIDAY/NOT-PARTICULARLY-RELIGIOUS ATHEIST HOE-DOWN!

ENJOY THE CHAPTER AND THE EGGNOG!

So we headed north. The Panda King had a few friends still that let us into the estate of General Tsao. Bentley over-nighted his equipment and we established a Safehouse at the very edge of the small town.

"Alright gang, listen up," He said, turning on his slide machine. We were all cramped in perhaps the smallest Safehouse ever and probably would have been broiling if it weren't so cold outside, "We all know that our objective here is to retrieve the Panda King's daughter, Jing King. She's being kept against her will by this man: General Tsao." A picture of a rooster decked out in armor appeared, "A real peach, this guy. During surveillance I actually witnessed him kick a puppy! Twice!"

"Can't wait to ruin this guy's day." I muttered.

"He's planning on forcing Jing King to marry him next Saturday. Clearly time is of the essence. First, I'll approach Tsao in disguise and attempt to get hired as his wedding planner. Hopefully with a man on the inside, we'll get some news on Jing King. Still, we need more information! Two of us will work together to steal a pair of twin keys and break into Tsao's house of business. I'll utilize some new technology to neutralize their ultra-tight security. Finally, thanks to Penelope's air sweeps, we've picked up an unusual radio signature out in the water. Someone will need to go eyeball the anomaly and figure out what it is. We can't make any mistakes here, or Jing King lives unhappily ever after."

"Hey Kaia, up for a pickpocketing challenge?"

I looked up at Bentley from where I'd been tinkering with my binocucom, "Sure, anything to get the blood flowing, it's freezing in here!" Sly was out getting photos to endear himself to the General, which was why I suspected Bentley had asked me. Sly had started me on pickpocketing a couple of months ago and I didn't suck at it, something I was rather proud of.

"Okay, General Tsao's center of business is protected by a special double-padlock. If we can get inside and past all the security, we should have access to the purchase records for the wedding." He said, spreading out a set of blueprints and pointing out the small building.

"Okay… so you just need me to go and get those keys?"

Hey shook his head, "I'm afraid it's not that simple. The keys are designed with a self-destruct feature and the guards carrying them are in constant radio contact."

"So if one of them notices they've been pickpocketed before we snatch the second key, the other guard can destroy it?"

"Precisely," Bentley pointed out the locations of both of the guards. "We need to steal the keys almost simultaneously. I'll go first and hail you on the binocucom when I've made the pull. Let's do this."

China was cold. Stupid winter. Stupid December. Stupid snow.

I stood crouched on top of a small house on stilts over the river, looking down at the guard that stood at the dock. Fortunately, his key ring was sticking out of his back pocket and wouldn't take much of a pull to obtain. The only potential hazard was my fingers going numb, but I was wearing gloves and had my hands tucked under my arms, just waiting for Bentley's cue.

"I've got the first key! Go for the second before the guards call in."

And there it was.

I slipped off the roof, landing lightly, as I'd been taught, and slid carefully into position behind the guard. I'd just pulled the key into my hands when a muffled voice came from his radio and he went to reach into his pocket, finding the key missing. We came face to face.

I grinned widely, "Well, hello there!" and threw a smoke pellet to the ground. While he was coughing and hacking, I bolted to the far side of the platform and leapt onto a passing boat's sail, scrambling around to the far side and holding on for dear life.

"Excellent, your key is still intact. We'll meet up by the General's statue."

"This guy sounds like a massive ego maniac," I muttered, heading down towards said statue, "I would have been more than happy to do this job even if we weren't getting a demo expert out of it."

"Trust me, so would I."

I had to crawl along the top of the wall for a bit to get to the ostentatious statue and, by extension, Bentley. I handed over my key with a smile, "Good luck. Have fun with that grapple-cam."

He smiled and tossed the tennis-ball sized piece of tech up and down, "Oh, I will. Don't wait up, this could go all night!"

I laughed and leapt down onto one of the lowest pathways. I wasn't quite ready to head back to the Safehouse, I wanted to get better acquainted with the area. We were going to be doing quite a lot over the next few days and I wanted to be able to do it without getting lost.

The estate was a maze of pathways on various levels, all leading to each other and, at the same time, nowhere. It seemed built on the concept of confusion and if Bentley hadn't perfected his waypoint technology, I would probably have no idea how to get back to the Safehouse.

Debatably the strangest thing in the area was a pagoda, to the left of the main house when it was viewed from the Safehouse. On the top level, there was a single room that was open to the outside. There was nothing inside it except a tarp you could step on to get to the window leading out. As far as I could tell, it didn't really serve a purpose.

I was still trying to puzzle it out when a screaming pig went flying past the window.

It took me a second to comprehend it and another to convince myself I wasn't seeing things. I stepped out the window and carefully to the edge of the roof, reaching out and turning on my binocucom at the same time.

"Umm… Penelope," I decided, seeing the RC chopper shoot past, "What's going on?"

"The unusual radio frequency out in the water was your old team van!" Penelope's voice was strained, "Murray refuses to leave it behind and I'm trying to clear a path for him to get back to the Safehouse!"

"I care not how many foes come before me! 'The Murray' shall vanquish them all in his righteous quest!"

"… right. I'm on my way, Murray." I may not have been much of a fighter, but this had 'bad idea' written all over it and I was going to help if I could.

It took a stupidly long amount of time for me to climb down from the pagoda and by the time I reached Murray, he'd been halted by six-foot tall protruding spikes.

"Sorry, Murray." We could see Penelope at the ledge of the Safehouse from where we stood. "But my RC chopper is out of fuel and I can't do anything about those spikes in your way."

"But… but we're so close!" Murray probably would have been on the verge of tears if he weren't so out of breath.

"You tried your best, we just ran out of options."

"She's right, Murray, it's hopeless. Get out of there, save yourself!" Bentley had apparently gotten in from his crazy night.

"Murray, come on, there'll be more guards here any minute!"

"I will not! I will never leave her behind again!"

"Murray-" I jumped when a new voice came over the binocucom line.

"Words to tear at a father's heart. Were that I had such passion when they came for my little Jing King... Fear not, brave hippo! I will destroy the spikes blocking your path!"

I jumped back when the turret above the Safehouse let loose a volley of ammunition, rendering the spikes into tiny, harmless metal shards in a matter of seconds.

"Whoa."

The remaining hundred yards to the Safehouse were a relative blur of explosions, beating guards back frantically with my baton, and cursing the team van to oblivion. It wasn't that I had anything against it, it was just that I had everything against it.

When we finally reached the Safehouse, the Panda King came down to meet us, bowing to Murray, "Well done, Hippo. You've lit the flames in my soul. I feel awake for the first time in years."

Oh heavens, not another one.

"No, thank you Panda King. You can ride in my van any time. You've got shotgun privileges for like a month!"

"A great honor. I accept," The panda said with another bow. I just groaned, Murray was going to want to take the van out just as soon as he broke it completely out of ice.

"I'm going to go preemptively take some motion-sickness meds…"

Just a few minutes after the van's triumphant return, Bentley gathered us for yet another slideshow.

"The operation is running smoothly. With me having gained access to Tsao's database and Sly successfully hired on as the wedding photographer, we're ready to make an attempt for Jing King. Given the complexity of Tsao's downloaded data, I've programmed the ThiefNet computer to automatically analyze- WHAT?!"

I think every single person in the severely cramped room jumped when Bentley yelped and a self-taken picture of Tsao, standing with the ThiefNet computer, appeared in the slideshow.

"General Tsao! He-" Bentley was clicking violently through his slideshow, "He- he's got my computer! Our whole plan was on that computer! How'd he find us- we're doomed!"

"Bentley, calm down. We need you sharp. Listen up, team." Sly had somehow made it across the room to hand Bentley a paper bag and take control of the briefing. Given the twisted nature of the gang's hierarchy, it always surprised me when Sly stepped into his actual roll of 'leader'. "This Tsao character is more clever than any of us thought. As of this moment, we have one goal, steal back the ThiefNet computer. The time for subtlety is over. Bentley, you break into the palace and ransack his personal computer, he might have linked it to ours. So that's where we'll start, the rest of the team will be on stand-by, there's no telling where this might take us."

"Umm…" A notion had crawled up into my head and settled in and it wasn't a nice houseguest. "I- I think I might know how Tsao found us." My voice was just barely over a whisper, but I suddenly had the team's full attention.

"What?" Sly was still in leader mode and was not happy, "Why didn't you mention this before?"

I fiddled with my bottle of motion sickness tablets anxiously. Stupid child-proof lids… "It just now made sense. I was out getting the lay of the land earlier and I found a little room tucked into the upper level of a pagoda. It was completely bare, but you could see most of the estate from there. It didn't click until just now that that included this place." I shook two chewables into my hand, having finally got the stupid thing open.

Bentley seemed to have caught his breath, "Where is it?"

I tossed the tablets into my mouth, "It's-" my back teeth sank into the first tablet and I choked, doubling over and coughing the medicine onto the floor. I then turned and bolted for the closet-sized bathroom in the back of the Safehouse.

"Jinx-!"

"Don't touch those pills!" I tried my best to move my mouth as little as possible while calling over my shoulder. I fumbled with my toothbrush and turned the faucet on full-blast.

While I scrubbed at my mouth with a desperation that would have made my dentist back home cry with joy, I heard Bentley squeeze through the group in the other room and examine the abandoned pill bottle.

"Kaia," I heard in his voice the same horror that had me on the verge of cardiac arrest, "Did you swallow any of that?"

I was too busy gargling to answer.

"Will someone tell me what is going on?!"

"Sly, smell this. Just smell, don't touch." I heard a rattling as the bottle of pills changed hands, "What does it smell like?"

"… almonds?"

"What does that mean, Bentley?" Oh innocent Penelope, I'm kind of relieved and kind of terrified that you don't know.

I spat out my mouthful of water. "Let's just put it this way, those chewables are supposed to be orange-flavored." I gripped the edge of the sink. My knees felt weak and my head was spinning, though I couldn't tell if that was a negative side-effect or just the result of such a dramatic scare.

"Cyanide powder." Bentley's voice was grim, "Tsao laced Kaia's motion-sickness tablets with poison."

"I don't think I swallowed any," I said quickly, to head off any panic before it could begin, "And if I did, it was just a little, not enough to seriously hurt me- I… I need to sit down…" I was shaking badly. My eyes were filled with moisture, so I felt my way to a corner and slid down, putting my head between my knees and trying to regulate my breathing.

The Safehouse was dead silent. I heard the faint rustle of cloth as Sly joined me in the bathroom.

"Kaia." His voice was the epitome of forced calm, "Are you sure? Are you absolutely positive you didn't swallow any?"

I took a deep, shuddering breath and sunk my nails into my ankles, "Yeah." I repeated, "I spat it out just as soon as I registered the taste. Even if I swallowed any, it won't be enough to hurt me." I really hoped that was true.

"Where did you keep the bottle?" Bentley's voice was barely more than a whisper.

"In my backpack."

Everyone was sent to check their own belongings. Sly didn't move, though, and neither did Bentley, which I appreciated. I was doing my very best not to have a nervous breakdown.

"Bentley," Sly forced calm was gone and had been replaced by completely natural cold fury. I would have pitied Tsao if he hadn't just tried to kill me, "Why would Tsao try to poison Kaia?"

"I- I don't know." Bentley sounded as if his world had shattered. Losing the ThiefNet computer followed by witnessing such a close call could do that.

"Sure you do," I was going over the list of symptoms of cyanide poisoning in my head and trying to figure out if I fit them as I spoke. Then I remembered that the whole purpose of cyanide was to keep the body from absorbing oxygen and leaned my head back against the wall, taking deep breaths but keeping my eyes closed, "Just think about it."

"I suppose…" There it was, the sound of those hamsters burning rubber. "Yes… yes, of course…"

"Enlighten me."

I let my eyes slide open a sliver. I don't think I have ever seen Sly so mad. "I'm kind of the physical representation of everything Tsao hates." I could say that with relative confidence, given what we knew of his personality.

"What do you mean?"

Bentley took over as I let my legs slide down, barely able to extend them in the small area, "We already know that Tsao has no great opinion of women, that's obvious by the way he treats Jing King like a possession and just kidnapped her immediately without even attempting a courtship."

"But that doesn't make sense- he kidnapped Jing King, he didn't kill her and he didn't try to kill Penelope." Frustration was evident in the raccoon's voice.

"It's because I'm a hybrid." I wish I hadn't let my eyes slide closed, I missed Sly's reaction entirely.

"What?"

I spared Bentley the awkwardness of explaining, because I'm nice like that, "Tsao considers women useful for one thing, the continuation of bloodlines. Hybrids can't have kids. In Tsao's mind, I'm worse than useless, I'm just hanging around, using up air and valuable resources."

"But- but you're-"

"A second generation hybrid? Yeah. My mom won the genetic lottery. I should rephrase, it's not impossible for a hybrid to have kids, but it's highly improbable; the odds are astronomic, almost incalculable. The little medical jargon I could understand when I was little and this was explained to me said that the only reason I was born was probably because my mom had wolf genes and my dad was a husky. At least, I think that's it. I could just as easily have made all that up to explain it to myself when I was younger." I realized I was babbling, so I shut up.

It was silent for a bit, until the outside door to the Safehouse opened and I heard Penelope's voice, quiet, like she had expected me to drop dead in the time since she'd left. "There's no poison anywhere else."

I opened my eyes again and found myself staring into Sly's, "See?"

He did not respond. He calmly stood up, calmly sat himself down in front of the binocucom station, and calmly asked if Bentley was ready to get started.

"… his diary says something about a secret passage through the prayer bell… and then a 'walk across the heavens'…? You getting this, Sly?"

"I'm en route to the bell now." Sly said, checking the straps on his leg pouch.

"Better bring along the Guru, this sounds like his department."

Sly turned to me, "You sure you're going to be okay?"

I fought the urge to roll my eyes and repeated to myself for the zillionth time that he was just worried. I'd probably be the same, in his position, "Sly, cyanide kills in fifteen minutes. It's been an hour, I'm fine." Actually, I was experiencing some muscle weakness and shortness of breath, but they were minor and would probably go away in a few hours, or a day at most. I knew this from research I did on common poisons when Bentley first suggested I take the position of field medic. It was serving me well now.

"Just don't keel over on me. We're not done yet."

I smiled and didn't even try to figure out what he meant, "I won't. I'll man the binocucom station and give color commentary if you want, just go get Tsao."

"I'll hold you to that."

It was a strange set-up. Sly was on the binocucom, I was manning the binocucom station, and Bentley was monitoring it all from the computer in Tsao's palace because he needed the codes stored in it.

I sighed as I peered out the window and saw Sly jumping on the heads of guards fifty feet in the air, "Ah, the days when I could pretend physics was plausible."

"Don't ruin my dreams, Kaia."

"Aw, who needs physics anyway? Physics is boring. Ah, I think I found the little hole in the wall you were talking about, Kaia. You're right, he could have seen us perfectly from here."

"Yeah," I propped my chin in my hand, tugging my coat a bit tighter around my shoulders. The Safehouse was cold when it was empty. "I should have thought of that when I first saw it, but then I got distracted by Murray and Penelope."

"Well, at least we know how he found us now. Hey, Sly, I'm getting weird readings from up ahead. Want to use your optimizer goggles?"

"No thanks, Bentley. I'd like to be able to look Tsao in the eye when I punch him in the face."

"Feeling a bit violent, are we?"

"Sly, if you get the chance, try to imply that Kaia took the cyanide pills. If he thinks she's dead, we can use her as a secret weapon."

"I don't know if I can do that, Bentley."

"Why not? It sounds like a good plan to me."

"Because if Tsao had killed you, actually killed you, all of this sneaking around would not have happened. Things would have gotten really messy really fast. And if I saw him face-to-face, I would probably have killed him."

You could have heard a pin drop over any of the binocucom lines. Sly had stated that last with dead certainty and that was scary. Of all the things the gang had done, cold-blooded murder was not even on the list. I wanted Bentley to be in the Safehouse with me, I wanted to ask him if Sly had taken a hit to the head or something and I hadn't been informed, Sly didn't even kill the people who killed his dad. Granted, that particular grievance had had ten years to be dwelt on, but still, why would he even consider that?

Then I imagined what would happen if it had been Bentley or Murray in my position and everything made sense. No force on Earth would have been able to stop Sly.

"You're not a killer, Sly." Thank you for being the voice of reason, Bentley.

"Well, maybe maim him, but he definitely wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else when I was done with him."

I wasn't sure what to feel about that, so I decided to change the subject to what I saw over the binocucom screen, "Whoa, what is that place?"

Then Tsao leapt up onto one of the bamboo trees, across the foggy, circular arena from Sly.

"Ah, the famous Sly Cooper. It seems you and your little gang were able to follow the trail I left for you. Of course, you'll be helpless without them, as you'll soon discover."

"Wow, this guy is secretly an idiot if he thinks you're helpless on your own." I muttered, wishing for a better angle from the binocucom.

I heard the slight smile in Sly's voice when he replied, "I'm not ashamed to rely on my friends."

"Who needs friends when you can have servants?" Tsao spat, "Who needs affection when you can have obedience?"

"People with souls."

"Kaia, you're probably being distracting-"

"Hey, I promised color commentary. This is it."

Was Tsao still talking? "This sacred forest has been the stage for hundreds of battles, as my ancestors crushed anyone who got in their way. And you will be no different."

"Bentley, are you hearing this? What's he talking about?"

"I've heard of these types of battlegrounds before. The energy from all the fighting that has gone on before strengthens the combatants, allowing them to soar for long distances. You should be able to fly across the entire arena with a single jump! Plus, you can probably change directions in the air with your double jump."

"Enough chit-chat, Cooper! Face me now and prepare for the end of your legacy!"

"Wow, this guy wasn't hugged enough as a kid."

"That dirty cheap bast-!"

"You okay, Sly?"

"Yeah," Sly coughed out, "Just a smoke bomb. I'd say something about him having a flair for the dramatic if it wouldn't be hypocritical."

"Good fight though, Sly," I said, taking out my medical kit, "He won't underestimate you again."

"Go ahead and come back to the Safehouse, partner. I've got a new plan in mind."

"You too, Bentley. I don't want you still in there when Tsao gets back. He's not going to be in a good mood."

"Jinx has a point."

"Don't worry, I'm already on my way back."

I sat back in my chair and ran a hand over my face. I was exhausted, which was something I didn't get to say often. I was just completely worn out by the day's events. "Umm, guys, if it's no big deal, I'm going to take a nap. Wake me for the slideshow?"

"You okay?"

I sighed, "Just tired. It's been a mad day."

"Sure, Kaia. It'll take me a bit to flesh out my plan anyway."

I smiled a little, "Thanks, Bentley. I'll see you guys in a bit."

And-done! You know, I feel a bit silly. The next chapter was the one that was actually supposed to fall on Christmas, but I miscounted when I published the story. Oops? Ah well. Let me know what you thought and have a Merry Christmas!