Hello, friends! I recently got diagnosed with tendinitis in my foot, which means I haven't been allowed to walk much while I'm recovering, which means I've been practically chained to my desk, which means progress on the sequel has actually happened! I'm three chapters in now, but that's not much for what I'm expecting will be at least a twenty-five chapters story. Still, it's progress!

Enjoy the chapter!

"I cannot deal with this in July," I said darkly, shivering into my tightly folded arms. "Mountains! I don't get it, how can we drop forty degrees in the span of time takes to drive up a mountain?"

"I suspect that you're complaining more than actually asking me about elevation and the effects it has on meteorology," Bentley said absentmindedly, setting up the binocucom station.

Sly leaned halfway over the back of the front seat, grinning as his tail swayed to maintain his balance. "Aw, are you cold Jinx?"

"I'm going to throw you into a snowdrift here in a minute."

Murray leaned over to fiddle with some of the knobs on the dash. "I'll turn up the heat!"

"You are the best of all of us."

Momentarily abandoning the knobs to carefully stop the van, wary of possible ice on the thin mountain path, Murray said, "Okay, this is as high as we can go in the van."

"Got it, pal." Sly sat back, threw open the door, and slipped out.

"Did he just go out in this without a coat?" I hissed, flinching away from the cold gust of air that had swept in from the door.

Bentley sighed, even as his fingers flew across the keys of his keyboard. "Yes, yes he did. He does that. He claims running around keeps him warm enough, but I'm pretty sure he just doesn't want to risk the noise a coat might make."

"Has he ever gotten frostbite?"

"Not that he's admitted to."

"Awesome."

Humming an affirmative, Bentley perked up when he finally got the video feed in the binocucom program up and running. "Would you look at that?" he asked, looking at the sparks streaking across the night sky through Sly's binocucom. "A fireworks show!"

I leaned over his shoulder. "Isn't that kind of low for a firewo-"

And that was when the rocket crashed into the side of a snow capped mountain, dumping literal tons of snow on a tiny village so accurately that it had to have been calculated.

A shiver ran through my body that had nothing to do with the cold as Bentley gaped.

"Oh my gosh, that's awful! That poor village just got buried in freezing snow!"

"The rocket came from that giant statue," Sly mused darkly panning to a large statue of a panda, higher up the mountain, "and you can bet the Panda King lit the fuse. I've gotta find my way up there and fast- before that lunatic squashes another town!"

Sitting back on my heels, I stared blankly at Bentley's screen.

That was... everything up until that avalanche was kind of comical. Raleigh had a weather machine, Muggshot was living in his very own mob movie, and Mz. Ruby had freaking zombies, but the Panda King had just brought down a mountain on people right in front of us. It made everything unsettlingly real.

The Cooper gang went up against criminals in a way that exposed their crimes to Interpol. They literally had an Interpol agent following them everywhere. Even if the local authorities were corrupt or couldn't do anything, there was hope if enough people found out. And high-profile master thieves brought a lot of publicity.

I'd always wondered at the ethics of stealing from thieves, if it was justifiable, but I decided right then and there that I didn't care. Exposing these people was right. Getting rich off it was a bonus.

Inhaling deeply, I started pulling on my shoes. "Murray, do you have a shovel or something?"

"Uh, why?"

Bentley turned and looked at me with mild disapproval. "You can't go down to the village and try to dig it up all by yourself. You'll freeze."

I shrugged. "It's better than doing nothing. It's not like I can help you guys out on the thievery side of things, so this is really my only option."

He gave me a long, long look. Then he tilted his head to one side and... smiled? "Murray, can Kaia borrow your coat?"

"Sure thing!"

"Um." I caught the coat Murray threw over the back of the seat. Though, it might have been more accurate to say I was buried by the coat Murray threw over the back of the seat. Fighting my way free of the pink fabric, I looked over at Bentley. "Call me crazy, but I don't think it's going to fit."

"It'll at least keep you warm," he said, rummaging under the floor panels for something and emerging with what looked like a jack glued to the back of the head of a snow shovel. He pointed to a button. "Press that when you're outside and the handle will extend. Take this too." He dug around in a container next to his workstation and produced a binocucom in a plain white case. "In case you need help."

Shrugging, I took it, tucking it into one massive pocket and ignoring the crinkle of snack wrappers. "Okay, but you guys should just focus on taking down the Panda King before this can happen again."

"Duly noted. Let us know if you need a pickup."

"Yeah, yeah." I flapped my arms through the sleeves a few times until the excess fabric was bundled around my wrists, then fastened the coat, tightened the laces on my shoes, grabbed the shovel, and bounded out the back doors of the van.

Then I immediately regretted the decision to do so.

As cold as it had been in the van, it was far colder outside. The mountain air was thin, the wind was strong, and the snow came up to my ankles. It was only pride and stubbornness that kept me from diving right back into the van.

Instead, I let the sleeves fall back over my hands and flipped the hood up over my head. I probably looked comical in Murray's giant pink coat. It came down to my knees and the hood practically ate my head, but Bentley was right, it was pretty warm.

The trek down to the village took about an hour. The scenery wouldn't have been beautiful if it weren't for, you know, the cold and the mass murder. The mountain peaks stretched toward the sky all around me and the snowflakes falling from the clouds lit up in the light from the torches and looked like floating stars as they descended.

I kept trying to look around, even though the wind made my eyes sting and water, both to make sure I was in the right place and because, well, it was kind of pretty.

A couple of times, I lost my footing on some hidden patches of evil, evil ice, but I managed to avoid rolling down the mountain in a steadily-growing snowball, for the most part. Still, I couldn't quite feel my feet by the time I reached valley the village was in.

When I rounded the bend to see the remains of the village I had to stop and stare.

There were splintered beams poking out of the snow, brightly colored roof tiles visible only as bumps under the pile of frozen flakes. But there were also villagers, holding torches and milling around. There were close to forty of them and they didn't look frantic, like they were looking for buried people, they were organized, gathered around a building that was only partially buried and trying to clear snow away from the entrance. Most of them had some small spades, but some were using their hands, so I hurried over, clutching Bentley's Franken-shovel tightly.

When they looked up at my approach, I abruptly realized that I didn't speak Chinese at all, so this was probably going to devolve to charades or something. I pressed the button on the shovel and nearly dropped it when the handle started flipping out, stopping when it reached five feet in length.

"Ah, another helping hand."

One of the people with spades stood up, a long, bushy red tail swinging behind him that seemed out of place in the crowd of monkeys and herons. He pushed his hood back, revealing bright green eyes and that particularly worrying grin foxes always seemed to have. Turning to the other workers, he rattled off a few words in Chinese and their confused looks quickly became welcoming as they waved me over.

"How did you do that?" I asked the fox, as I fell in next to him.

"I made words with my mouth. May I?" he held a hand out for the big shovel, which I handed over. He looked way stronger than me and he was well over six feet, he'd probably be able to use the shovel faster and better than I would.

Tucking my hands into the sleeves again and folding my arms, I gave him a long look. His clothes didn't look Chinese and he didn't have an accent. "Who are you?"

"Just a translator."

"What are you doing here?"

"I got lost on my way home."

I narrowed my eyes at him, partially because of his answers and partially because he didn't look annoyed at the repeated questions. If anything, he looked entertained. "We're in the middle of the mountains."

"I got lost a lot." He cut a look my way. "And what are you doing here? Your accent's American. You're a long way from home."

I pointed at the village. "I wanted to help out, but some smart aleck took my shovel."

Dipping his head, he let out a low, rolling chuckle and handed me his discarded spade. "Help us clear the door."

Folding the sleeves around my hands so my fingers would freeze, I grabbed the spade. "Why are we clearing this building in particular?"

"This is where all their valuables are." The fox wasn't even winded as he hefted shovelful after shovelful of snow from the door. "They had some warning, were able to evacuate and get the things they really needed to this storehouse. It's on the edge of the village, they weren't expecting the avalanche to reach it. It's still standing, though."

I paused, stabbing the spade into a chunk of snow. "How'd they have warning? Did one of the Panda King's guards let them know?"

"They knew it was coming because they couldn't pay the 'protection fee'," the foxes face darkened just a bit at the words, "but I'm not sure how they found out exactly when it was coming."

A commotion from the other end of the village caught my attention. Some of the villagers were huddled around a small figure that looked like they'd just come down another path from the mountain. I was trying to decide if I wanted to go see what it was about when metal scraped against wood, making my fur stand on end.

The fox stood, knocking the last bit of snow off the Franken-shovel and leading me out of the way so the other villagers could finally pull the doors open and inspect their remaining belongings. He tilted his head toward the commotion on the other side of the village. "Want to go see what's going on?"

"Sure." I took the shovel back, turning it over in my hands as we walked until I found a button on the other side that retracted the handle again.

It turned out the newcomer was a small panda girl. She was talking frantically with an elderly heron woman, who seemed to be trying to calm her down. The girl was dressed much more nicely than the villagers, with a long, silvery-blue coat and sturdy-looking boots and gloves.

When we approached, the girl gave us a small bow and spoke in careful English. "They say you came to help them with the snow. Thank you."

The fox bowed back and I said, "It's nothing."

She looked up at us, swallowing hard. Her eyes were bright, but she politely held out a hand. "I am Jing King."

"I'm Kaia," I replied, shaking her hand. "Are you the Panda King's daughter?"

"Yes." She swallowed again. "I tried to stop him, but I couldn't, so I warned the villagers instead."

"That was very good of you," the fox said, his voice soothing.

Jing shook her head. "I should have done more. These people do not have homes anymore."

"You did a lot," the fox insisted. "You gave them their lives."

Sniffing slightly, Jing King raised her head. "Thank you. I must return home, before my father notices that I am gone."

"Is it safe for you to go all that way by yourself?" I asked, thinking of not only the harsh weather, but also that some villagers might not be as appreciative as the others and might try to take their anger out on Jing.

The fox slipped into Chinese so easily I was left blinking at him in surprise. He and Jing exchanged a few words, then she nodded and he turned to me. "I'll walk her until she gets to the grounds. The guards there are more than aware of how important her safety is."

I'd have been a little wary of the fox, but he genuinely seemed like a decent person. Besides, with Bentley having eyes and ears everywhere, we'd know if something happened to Jing, and the fox's fingerprints were on the shovel anyway. "Okay." I turned to Jing. "Be careful."

"Yes." She bowed again. "You have our thanks."

And then they were off. With no way to communicate with the other villagers and no knowledge of where else to help, I headed back up the mountain towards the van.

Going up was much worse than going down, both for the obvious reason of gravity and because my feet had reached the point where they were so cold that my bones ached and the thinness of the air made it hard to catch my breath.

"Hey, Jinx!"

I looked up when I'd nearly reached the van to see Sly coming my way, a hand up in greeting. I blinked sluggishly at him. "Back already?"

He held up a ring, on which four keys clinked happily. "I've had a busy couple of hours. Bentley wanted me to come back to the van and warm up, but he said you went to go help the village?"

Nodding, I fell into step with him. "Yeah. They were mostly okay, though. I mean, their houses are destroyed, by no one was caught in the avalanche. The Panda King's daughter warned them."

Sly stopped short, shooting me a look. "The Panda King has a daughter? How old is she?"

"Um," I rolled my head, trying to ease an itch at the back of my neck without pulling my hands free of their warm cocoons. "My age? Maybe a little older? She was tiny and I'm bad at guessing ages, but I think that's right."

"Huh." How Sly wasn't freezing to death was beyond me. He dragged his feet a little as we walked until I finished my internal debate on whether to ask or leave it alone.

"What's on your mind?"

Sighing, he spun the keyring around his finger. "I'm just trying to figure out what the Panda King thought he was doing joining up with the Fiendish Five when he had a six-year-old at home. It's not like he'd be Dad of the Year or anything, but that's still a little weird. When you have a kid, they're your number one priority, not getting back at snide nobles."

I smiled to myself. He had that particular tone of voice he always got when he talked about his dad. "Did your dad tell you that?"

"He didn't have to. He showed me, every day." Catching the keys in his fist, he exhaled, then started flipping the ring around. "Did she seem scared of him or anything?"

"No, just frustrated and sad. And she didn't seem to mind going home."

"I'll keep an eye out anyway." We both stopped when we came to the spot where the van... should have been. "That can't be good."

Shifting my weight rapidly in an attempt to get warm, I watched while Sly pulled out his binocucom to contact Murray. "They need to get back before my feet fall off."

"Murray's racing for a treasure key, it'll probably be a little while." Sly hesitated, then glanced farther up the mountain. After a moment of deep though, he gave a wicked grin. "Want to go get a treasure key?"

I stared blankly at him for a moment. "You mean... go on a job? ... with you?"

"Yup."

"An actual job?"

"You were the one complaining about being cold. This'll get the blood flowing."

It was probably going to be dangerous. It was almost definitely going to be terrifying. But it also sounded really, really interesting. "Sure, why not?"

"Is it just me, or is that dragon statue a little gratuitous?" I asked, pushing the bangs out of my face.

"It's not just you." Sly waved me closer so we could ride a firework powered spinning platform like an escalator up to the roof of one of the buildings jutting out the side of the mountain. Apparently, the treasure key was all the way at the top.

I maybe held a little too tightly to him as we stepped onto the next roof. "Next time, invite me on a job that takes place completely on the ground."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

I opened my mouth to retort, but the words died in my throat when I caught sight of the dragon statue, key held in its mouth- and the woman on top of it.

"Freeze, raccoon!"

Sly had his cane around my neck and an arm around my shoulders before I could even process Carmelita's presence. "How can I freeze when my heart warms at the very sight of you?" the words rolled off his tongue easily, but I could feel the line of tension running through his body.

"Shut up, ringtail! Are you okay, Kaia?"

The vixen's voice was so furious and demanding that I hardly processed that she was asking after my well-being. "Fine," I answered, a little breathlessly. The metal of the cane was cold against my neck, but I wasn't scared of anything except losing my footing.

Carmelita gritted her teeth, her eyes locked over my shoulder, on Sly. "I don't know what you're doing in China, but I'm sure it can't be good for whoever owns this place. Let go of the girl and back away."

If anything, Sly's grip tightened. "You must only have eyes for me if you're too blind to see what's really going on here."

The insult didn't go unnoticed. "All I see it's a pathetic thief and kidnapper who's escaped justice for far too long."

"I'm proud to be a thief." Sly shot back, shifting his weight. I braced myself, preparing to run. "Especially when I'm stealing from a vicious extortionist like the Panda King. Open your eyes, 'Detective'. These quaint temples are a front for an illegal explosives factory."

"He's right," I said, because I had to say something. "The Panda King just caused an avalanche that buried an entire village a few hours ago, I saw it."

But Carmelita wasn't listening. "Don't try to confuse the issue. You criminals are all the same, and none of you can escape justice."

"Hang on."

That was all the warning I got before Sly was running, dragging me along with him. He tightened his grip on me before jumping and catching a line overhead with his cane.

And then we were falling at a rather spectacular rate.

I might have screamed, it's was hard to hear over the sound of my life flashing before my eyes.

The landing was rough, but I was talking even as I lurched to my feet.

"Never do that again. And don't invite me on jobs where Interpol officers are going to be present."

"We didn't exactly have time to compare schedules," Sly hissed, seizing my hand as Carmelita came after us. "Run!"

It was a time to be grateful that Carmelita was a bad shot because she was firing kind of indiscriminately as Sly and I booked it across the frozen stone paths of the temple.

The temple was convoluted and nonsensical. Fortunately, there were plenty of rockets lying around for blowing holes through walls.

"Oh God no." I tried to stop short as the path Sly wanted to take led across the tops of several giant lamps, but Sly had a good grip and a lot of momentum, so we went tumbling forward, out of Carmelita's sight.

"We have to keep moving," Sly said, dragging me along through ruined hallways as they twisted around the dragon statue.

Some of the halls had giant gaps where the floor used to be, forcing us to crawl along windowsills as Carmelita blasted out what glass was left. Most of the walls of the dragon temple were gone, but a few allowed us to duck behind them, avoiding the crazy fox with the shock pistol.

"This place would be pretty if it weren't in such disrepair," I muttered, as we took a few moments to catch our breaths while huddled on some rooftops behind the statue, where Carmelita couldn't get us.

Sly shook some snowflakes out of his coat. "I doubt the Panda King cares much about the aesthetics of his explosives factory."

As I panted, I thought. Carmelita was still out there and she really, really wanted to shoot Sly. She was waiting, probably had her shock pistol trained on where we were supposed to come out.

"Maybe I can distract her," I offered reluctantly. "I doubt she'll go chasing after you if I run up to her and say I got away-"

"No."

I glanced over at Sly, only to find him looking pointedly away. "But-"

"No." He struggled for a moment, then said, "You know where the van is."

It was a weak excuse. It was a pathetic reason. I should have argued against it, it was high time for me to go home anyway, but... "Fair enough."

He reached out, taking my hand again and leaning forward, eyes tracking the route we were going to have to take. "Come on."

Bentley was about ten second from crawling out of his own shell with anxiety when Sly and Kaia came tumbling in through the back doors of the van. "Where have you two been?"

Kaia's head came up. Her eyes were over bright and she was giggling, a manic grin plastered across her face. "We ran away from Carmelita on giant icicles and I can't feel my feet."

After a long, long moment, Bentley turned to Sly and simply raised an eyebrow.

To his credit, Sly's grin was a little sheepish. "It's the adrenaline rush catching up to her. The first escape is always the best."

"Are you corrupting her?"

Sly pretended to think about it before nodding.

Kaia didn't even pretend to think about it as she peeled off her snow-caked shoes and soaked socks before shoving her toes as close to the vent on Bentley's computer tower as she could. "Yes he is and he should be ashamed of himself."

"I am very ashamed," Sly assured her absently as he pulled out the most recent key ring, fitting a fifth ring to it.

Without being prompted, Bentley handed over the sixth.

"I got you both ice cream," Murray said, reaching into the cup holders and passing them both paper cups.

"Oh, sweet." Kaia took one cup, looked into it, then swapped it with Sly's. Sly did not seem to mind having to swap mint chocolate chip for strawberry at all.

Bentley shuddered, huddling deeper in his shell. "How you can eat that stuff in this cold is beyond me."

Pointing at him with her spoon, Kaia informed him, "It's all a matter of how much you value ice cream over your own comfort."

Murray nodded, like this was pure wisdom, and that was all Bentley needed to know that the conversation wouldn't be making any more sense any time soon. Instead of continuing it, he pulled up the map of the Panda King's temple and pointed to the only circle not crossed out yet. "I've determined that this is the location of the last treasure key. After you get it, you'll be able to unlock the rocket cluster that should take you up to the Panda King's statue."

"Or blow me up."

"Or that," Bentley agreed.

Kaia was giving Sly a faintly concerned look. "Why do you do this? Why do you do these things? You are completely mad."

"Yes," he agreed, knocking his empty paper cup against her half-full one before leaping to his feet. "I'm going to go get the last key."

"Be careful."

There was a vehicle that Sly had had to use to get the last treasure key that was apparently identical to the one he'd used in the swamp in Haiti. Bentley'd had him bring some of the ammo from it back to the van for analysis before he'd taken off to fight the Panda King.

'Taken off' was quite literal, by the way. I'd looked over Bentley's should as the rockets had arced across the sky, carrying Sly with them to the giant statue, where the Panda King waited. My heart had been in my throat the entire time and it hadn't gone down when the fight had actually started.

I'd been banished from the van for the fight due to the fact that, if the pattern stayed true, they'd probably figure out the location of the last member of the Fiendish Five from the Panda King, which was something I wasn't allowed to know.

Unfortunately for Bentley, he'd forgotten one key detail.

He'd made the mistake of giving me a binocucom.

It had taken me a few moments to figure out the earbud, but once I had, I was able to listen in. I was just in time to hear Sly tell the Panda King that he'd originally come for revenge, but now he was more interested in stopping the avalanche extortion scheme.

I felt a swell of pride for Sly at the dressing-down he gave the Panda King- then I felt nothing but panic as the fight started.

Listening was nerve-wracking, but I couldn't actually watch through the binocucom without letting Bentley in on the fact that I wasn't minding my own business outside the van. All I could do was stand there, clutching the binocucom in one hand and pressing the other to my ear, like that could help me decipher the crackle of flames and the thuds of a cane hitting flesh.

Finally, there was silence, heart-stopping silence. Then-

"Your skill with that cane is unparalleled."

The Panda King was quiet, after that, as Bentley's voice flooded the binocucom channel.

"Sly! I did a cross analysis of the metal used in that high-tech blasting vehicle and it turns out it can only be found in one place- the Krack-Karov volcano in Russia! That's got to be where we'll find the fifth member of the Fiendish Five! So get what you came for and let's get out of here!"

"You got it, pal."

I blinked, stared down at the tiny machine in my hands, then swiftly put it away when the van's back doors opened.

"Sly's on his way back, come on in!"

I pulled myself into the van. "Let me guess, bad guy is vanquished, Interpol is on the way?"

"Well, Sly took care of the Panda King, but so far Interpol is-" the binocucom station started blaring warnings. "... okay, yes, it does look like Interpol is closing in."

Moments later, Sly threw the van door open and dove inside. "Punch it, Murray!"

"You got it, chum!"

"Don't punch it too fast!" I shouted, throwing my hands out to brace against the sides of the van, hyper aware of the way the wheels were squealing and that there was very likely ice on the road.

"Calm down." Sly was grinning as he dropped down next to me and reached into his backpack, producing a few pieces of paper. "I got the pages."

"Great." Bentley's fingers were still flying across his keyboard. "Okay, once we get down the mountain, we can leave Kaia somewhere with a phone-"

"Or," I interrupted, waiting until Bentley was looking at me before very deliberately pulling out the earbud I was still wearing, "Kaia could come with. Russia, right? I didn't know there were volcanoes there."

Dead silence.

Bentley closed his laptop and climbed into the front seat. "I'm going to lay down."

I felt a little bad about Bentley's blood pressure, but it was a guilt that was almost completely abated by the massive grin that was on Sly's face when I looked his way.

China is finished! Just two more chapters and an epilogue to go! Feel free to check out the blog and I'll see you all in a couple of weeks!